Hogarth: A Life and a World

Combining in-depth history with perceptive explication of the references encoded in William Hogarth's images, Jenny Uglow enables modern readers to fully understand the society that shaped the art of William Hogarth (1697-1764). Hugely popular engravings such as A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-La-Mode commented on the tumultuous changes sweeping through 18th-century English society; Hogarth was appreciated as a moralist as much as a painter. Uglow colorfully recreates a vanished world, as well as the prickly nature of a man who revolutionized the role and the status of British artists.