Carrying Beef Over Your Shoulders Artworks

O the Roast Beefiness of Old England is perchance one of Hogarth's about famous paintings – information technology's as well one of his most overtly patriotic. While visiting France in 1748, Hogarth was arrested as a suspected spy in Calais when he was discovered sketching the fortifications and this painting wryly marks the occasion.

His self-portrait appears in the background, a manus resting ominously on his shoulder, while in the centre a great hunk of beef, symbolising British prosperity, is contrasted with scrawny French soldiers and watery soup on the 1 hand, and on the other, a salivating Cosmic friar and a group of superstitious fisherwomen who believe they've seen Christ in a flatfish.

The painting tells a 'good' story and Hogarth carefully positions himself as a swell social observer, indeed it has many of the characteristics that make Hogarth one of Uk's well-nigh well-loved artists – wit, irreverence, an unflinching candour and immediacy.

These traits take get synonymous with Hogarth, fifty-fifty part of his brand ('Hogarthian' was in utilise even in his lifetime), simply more than than that they seem to typify Hogarth, a born and bred Londoner, equally a 'truthful Brit' and 'father' of English painting.

Yet, if we await again at O the Roast Beef, we might also note that the luscious detail of the meat and fish seems indebted to the notwithstanding life paintings of Jean-Siméon Chardin, whose studio Hogarth had visited in Paris. The strong framing entrance and recognisable setting can be associated with the city views that Venetian painter, Canaletto, had increasingly popularised since his arrival in London in 1746.

The anti-French imagery and stereotypes it trades in draw upon the accounts of the large Huguenot (French protestant refugee) community in London, with which Hogarth had close connections. The image itself was widely reproduced and circulated in print too, equally Hogarth produced engravings afterwards many of his works for the mass market, and even on Chinese export porcelain. It is non long and then before the picture'due south distinct nationalism is unsettled by the connections that extend far beyond Britain solitary.

What emerges is a far richer moving-picture show: of Hogarth as an artist deeply engaged with European art, and of eighteenth-century culture as far more cosmopolitan and connected than we might at kickoff call up. This gets to the center of the Hogarth and Europe exhibition at Tate Britain, which displays Hogarth's art in a fresh lite alongside works by his Continental contemporaries, including Watteau in Paris, Pietro Longhi in Venice and Cornelis Troost in Amsterdam.

While the idea that Hogarth knew and admired European art is longstanding, the opportunity to test this on the walls, to come across the crosscurrents, exchanges and divergences in the flesh, is new and not entirely predictable. Through this, the evidence seeks to explore how artists across Europe grappled with and gave visual expression to the rapid social, economic and cultural changes of the eighteenth century – its freedoms and opportunities equally much every bit its contradictions, exploitation and injustices.

These changes can be detected in the ways in which artists imagined themselves as they navigated working more similar freelancers, enjoying more creative freedom but at the same time becoming more financially vulnerable. Hogarth's Cocky-portrait Painting the Comic Muse, for example, highlights the artist's desire to be viewed as a serious comic painter (Thalia, the Muse of One-act is on his canvas), but perhaps self-consciously and a little humorously information technology likewise evokes the visual tradition of Singerie, where monkeys are ofttimes portrayed painting – this was certainly a link that his contemporary critics made! The French painter Étienne Jeaurat on the other hand shows an creative person'south students warming their hands against the fire, tracing confronting a window or poring over drawings.

Or these shifts tin can be seen in the way that artist's portrayed others. Francis Matthew Schutz is rather surprisingly shown by Hogarth hungover and vomiting into his bedpan, the painting apparently commissioned by his married woman who was fed upwardly with his drinking and womanising. Yet while Hogarth's blasphemy might appeal to some patrons, particularly men who flattered themselves that they were complimentary-thinking, contained and witty – in on the joke and powerful enough to withstand the rough treatment – he could also bring remarkable sensitivity to his portraits.

His portrait of his servants is absorbing in its naturalism and directness, seeming to capture their grapheme and singled-out identities. In this respect, information technology may reflect new ideas of individuality emerging in the eighteenth century, including in this instance the often-marginalised working grade. But it may also reflect the market forces at piece of work, as Hogarth may accept used it to advertise his skills to potential portrait clients.

Or these tensions become apparent through the imagery itself. A Midnight Mod Conversation comically depicts the tardily-dark revelry and conviviality of drunken men, bringing the 'Hogarthian' into abrupt focus. Although Hogarth's original is now lost, the image was highly popular, reproduced in print, extensively copied and widely circulated. Looking more than closely, though, the rum dial being boozer and the sugar that sweetens it, the tobacco being smoked, all indicate to the global networks of trade, commerce and empire that underpinned European culture and consumption, and the stark inequities and violence this entailed.

Perhaps well-nigh tellingly though, these changes are axiomatic in the ways in which artists – and none more and so than Hogarth – took on new roles as social commentators. Today, Hogarth is best known for his 'Modern Moral Serial', which traces the fortunes of a character over a series of pictures – as in Wedlock A-la-Style which depicts the unhappy consequences of a marriage of convenience.

Money is exchanged for condition and Hogarth fills the paintings with lavish details that suggest the corrupting influence of wealth and materialism. Simply all his series speak to the social types and preoccupations of the twenty-four hours and, significantly, are located in recognisable places across London. They exemplify how artists were working increasingly entrepreneurially, able to address a far larger, urban audience directly, and were able to tell their ain stories that might reflect and critique society.

Nosotros hope that these threads will be evident throughout the exhibition and that the art on display offers a glimpse into the ways in which artists engaged with the new modernistic experience.

Alice Insley, assistant curator of historic British art at Tate Uk

'Hogarth and Europe' at Tate U.k. runs until 20th March 2022

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Source: https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-social-commentary-of-william-hogarth

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