William Hogarth
A Scene from ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ VI
(1731)
Tate
Hogarth is not only the first great native English easel-painter; his pictures epitomize perhaps more than any other the British character. We may possibly have lost some of the robustness and assurance of this typical eighteenth-century Englishman, but we can still find in him a reflection of many of our own tastes and prejudices.
Hogarth’s genius gives us a wider insight into the life and manners of eighteenth-century England than any other painter of the period.
