Hogarth soon followed Industry and Idleness with another, even more, popular series, The Four Stages of Cruelty. A tale of poverty, crime, and punishment, The Stages of Cruelty is, in many ways, Hogarth’s most searing piece of social critique. But it is also most powerfully an expression of his deep and enduring faith in the power of art to change society for the better. In this lecture, Meredith Gamer considers how the Cruelty series works, at once, to expose and repair the harm that humans do.
William Hogarth was an English painter and printmaker. Born in London in 1697, Hogarth went on to undertake an apprenticeship as an engraver, which he later abandoned. He is most noted for his serialised works satirising society and morality. His works became hugely popular due to the mass production and distribution of his etchings. In this series, Mark Hallett (Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre), Meredith Gamer (Assistant Professor, Columbia University), and Elizabeth Robles (Lecturer, University of Bristol) will introduce you to Hogarth and his most noted works.
TW: Depictions animal cruelty
Shot and edited by Jonathan Law
Music by Daniel Birch, 'Sustained Light', 2021, CC BY 4.0