XXI

WILLIAM HOGARTH

_School of Hogarth (English)_ 1697-1764

William Hogarth, like Watteau, originated his own school; in short there never was anybody like him. He was an editorial writer in charcoal and paint, or in other words he had a story to tell every time he made a picture, and there was an argument in it, a right and a wrong, and he presented his point of view by making pictures.

English artists in literature and in painting have done some great reformatory work. Charles d.i.c.kens overthrew some dreadful abuses by writing certain novels. The one which has most interest for children is the awful story of Dotheboys' Hall, which exposed the ill treatment of pupils in a certain cla.s.s of English schools. What d.i.c.kens and Charles Reade did in literature, Hogarth undertook to do in painting. He described social shams; painted things as they were, thus making many people ashamed and possibly better.

Italians had always painted saints and Madonnas, but Hogarth pretended to despise that sort of work, and painted only human beings. He did not really despise Raphael, t.i.tian, and their brother artists, but he was so disgusted with the use that had been made of them and their schools of art, to the entire exclusion of more familiar subjects, that he turned satirist and ridiculed everything.

First of all, Hogarth was an engraver. He was born in London on the 10th December, 1697, and eighteen days later was baptised in the church of St. Bartholemew the Great. His father was a school teacher and a "literary hack," which means that in literature he did whatever he could find to do, reporting, editing, and so on.

Hogarth must early have known something of vagabond life, for his father's life during his own youth must have brought him into a.s.sociation with all sorts of people. He knew how madhouses were run, how kings dined, how beggars slept in goods boxes, and many other useful items.

Hogarth said of himself: "Shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant, and mimicry, common to all children, was remarkable in me.... My exercises, when at school, were more remarkable for the ornaments which adorned them, than for the exercises themselves." He became an engraver or silver-plater, being apprenticed to Mr. Ellis Gamble, at the sign of the "Golden Angel," Cranbourne Alley, Leicester Fields.

Engraving on silver plate was all well enough, but Hogarth aspired to become an engraver on copper, and he has said that this was about the highest ambition he had while he was in Cranbourne Alley.

The shop-card which he engraved for Mr. Ellis Gamble may have been the first significant piece of work he undertook. The card is still among the Hogarth relics. He set up as an engraver on his own account, though he did study a little in Sir James Thornhill's art school; but whatever he learned he turned to characteristic account.

He continued to make shop-cards, shop-bills, and book-plates. Finally, in 1727, a maker of tapestry engaged Hogarth to sketch him a design end he set to work ambitiously He worked throughout that year upon the design, but when he took it to the man it was refused. The truth was that the man who had commissioned the work had heard that Hogarth was "an engraver and no painter," and he had so little intelligence that he did not intend to accept his design, however much it might have pleased him. Hogarth sued the man for his refusal and he won the suit. He next began to make what he called "conversation pieces,"

little paintings about a foot high of groups of people, the figures being all portraits. These were very fashionable for a time and made some money for the artist. Both he and Watteau were fond of the stage, and both painted scenes from operas and plays.

In time he moved into lodgings at the "Golden Head," in Leicester Fields, and there he made his home. He had already begun the great paintings which were to make him famous among artists. These were a series of pictures, telling stories of fashionable and other life. His own story of how he came to think of the picture series was that he had always wished to present dramatic stories--present them in scenes as he saw them on the stage.

He had married the daughter of Sir James Thornhill, and had never been thought of kindly by his father-in-law till he made so much stir with his first series. Then Sir James approved of him, and Hogarth found life more pleasing.

There are very few anecdotes to tell of the artist's life, and the story of his pictures is much more amusing. One of his first satires was made into a pantomime by Theophilus Gibber, and another person made it into an opera. Many pamphlets and poems were written about it, and finally china was painted with its scenes and figures. There was as much to cry as to laugh over in Hogarth's pieces and that is what made them so truly great. One of his great picture series was called the "Rake's Progress" and it was a warning to all young men against leading too gay a life. It showed the "Rake" at the beginning of his misfortunes, gambling, and in the last reaping the reward of his follies in a debtor's prison and the madhouse. There are eight pictures in that set.

In this series, especially in the fifth picture, there are extraordinary proofs of Hogarth's completeness of ideas. Upon the wall in the room wherein the "Rake" marries an old woman for her money, the Ten Commandments are hung, all cracked, and the Creed also is cracked and nearly smudged out; while the poor-box is covered with cobwebs. The eight pictures brought to Hogarth only seventy guineas.

One of his pictures was suggested to him by an incident which greatly angered him. He had started for France on some errand of his own, and was in the very act of sketching the old gate at Calais, when he was arrested as a spy. Now Hogarth was a hard-headed Englishman, and when he was hustled back to England without being given time for argument, he was so enraged that he made his picture as grotesque as possible, to the lasting chagrin of France. He painted the French soldiers as the most absurd, thin little fellows imaginable, and that picture has largely influenced people's idea of the French soldier all over the English-speaking world.

As Hogarth grew old he grew also a little bitter and revengeful toward his enemies, often taking his revenge in the ordinary way of belittling the people he disliked, in his paintings.

Hogarth came before Reynolds or Gainsborough; in short, was the first great English artist, and his chief power lay in being able instantly to catch a fleeting expression, and to interpret it. An incident of Hogarth's youth ill.u.s.trates this. He had got into a row in a pot-house with one of the hangers-on, and when someone struck the brawler over the head with a pewter pot, there, in the midst of excitement and rioting, Hogarth whipped out his pencil and hastily sketched the expression of the chap who had been hit.

Hogarth was friends with most of the theatre managers, and one of his souvenirs was a gold pa.s.s given him by Tyers, the director of Vauxhall Gardens, which ent.i.tled Hogarth and his family to entrance during their lives. This was in return for some "pa.s.ses," which Hogarth had engraved for Tyer.

Upon one occasion Hogarth set off with some companions for a trip to the Isle of Sheppey. Incidentally Forest wrote a sketch of their journey and Hogarth ill.u.s.trated it. That work is to be found, carefully preserved, in the British Museum. The repeated copying and reproduction for sale of his pictures brought about the first effort to protect his works of art by copyright. But it was not till he had done the "Rake's Progress" that he was able to protect himself at all, and even then not completely.

Just before his death he was staying at Chiswick, but the day before he died he was removed to his house in Leicester Fields. He was buried in the Chiswick churchyard; and in that suburb of London may still be seen his old house and a mulberry tree where he often sat amusing children for whom he cared very much. Garrick wrote the following epitaph for his tomb:

If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay; If Nature touch thee, drop a tear; If neither move thee, turn away, For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here.

Farewell, great Painter of Mankind!

Who reached the n.o.blest point of art, Whose pictured Morals charm the Mind And through the Eye correct the Heart.

PLATE--THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT

The picture used in ill.u.s.tration here is part of probably the very greatest art-sermon ever painted, called "Marriage ? la Mode." The story of it is worth telling:

"The first act is laid in the drawing-room of the Viscount Squanderfield"--is not that a fine name for the character? "On the left, his lordship is seated, pointing with complacent pride to his family tree, which has its roots in William the Conqueror. But his rent roll had been squandered, the gouty foot suggesting whither some of it has gone; and to restore his fortunes he is about to marry his heir to the daughter of a rich alderman. The latter is seated awkwardly at the table, holding the marriage contract duly sealed, signed and delivered; the price paid for it, being shown by the pile of money on the table and the bunch of cancelled mortgages which the lawyer is presenting to the n.o.bleman, who refuses to soil his elegant fingers with them. Over on the left is his weakling son, helping himself at this critical turn of his affairs, to a pinch of snuff while he gazes admiringly at his own figure in the mirror. The lady is equally indifferent; she has strung the ring on to her finger and is toying with it, while she listens to the compliments being paid to her by Counsellor Silver-tongue. Through an open window another lawyer is comparing his lordship's new house, that is in the course of building, with the plan in his hand. A marriage so begun could only end in misery." This is the first act, and the pictures that follow show all the steps of unhappiness which the couple take. There are five more acts to that painted drama, which is in the National Gallery, London.

XXII

HANS HOLBEIN, THE YOUNGER

(p.r.o.nounced Hahntz Hol'bine) _German School_ 1497-1543 _Pupil of Holbein, the Elder_

There were three generations of painters in the Holbein family, and the Hans of whom we speak was of the third. His grandfather was called "old Holbein," and when more painters of the same name and family came along it became necessary to distinguish them from each other thus: "old Holbein," the "elder Holbein," and "young Holbein." The first one was not much of an artist; still, in a locality where at best there was not much art he was good enough to be remembered.

"Young Holbein" was born in Augsburg, which is in Swabia, in southern Germany; "elder Holbein" and his father, Michael, "old Holbein," had moved there from Schonenfeld, a neighbouring village, about forty three years before little Hans was born, the old Michael bringing his family to the larger town where it was easier to make a living.

The "elder Holbein" was a really good artist and well thought of in Augsburg, and when little Hans's turn came he had no teacher but his father, unless indeed we were to call him also a pupil of his elder brother, Ambrosius. His uncle Sigismund, too, taught him something of art, for the whole Holbein family seem to have been artists. Young Holbein was never regularly apprenticed to any outsider.

Art was not then taught as it is now. The work of a beginner was often to paint for his master certain details which it was thought that he might handle properly, while the master occupied himself with what he thought to be some more important part of the picture. It is said that Hans often painted the draperies of his father's figures when his father was engaged upon the altar pieces so fashionable at the time. The Holbeins one and all must have been bad managers or improvident; at any rate, Hans did not turn out well as a man and we read that his father was always in debt and difficulty although he received much money for his work and was not handicapped, like Drer's father, by a family of eighteen children.

The story of the Holbeins is quite unlike that of the Drers, and not nearly so attractive.

Some time before Hans was twenty years of age, the entire family had packed up and gone to live in Lucerne, while Hans and his brother, Ambrosius, went travelling together, as most young Germans went at that time before they settled down to the serious work of life. The last we hear of Ambrosius he had joined the painters' guild in Basel, and probably he died not long afterward, or at any rate while he was still young. There was in Basel a certain Hans Bar, for whose wedding occasion Hans Holbein designed a table, on which he pictured an allegory of "St. n.o.body." This was very likely such work as our cartoonists do to-day, but being the work of Holbein, it had great artistic value. Besides that, he painted a schoolmaster's sign to be hung outside the door.

As an ill.u.s.trator, Holbein made the acquaintance of several authors about that time and started on the high road to fame. He was a man of very little conscience or fine feeling, and there could hardly be a greater contrast than that between the clean sweet life of Drer and the brawling, unfeeling one that Hans Holbein led.

Drer married, had no children, but tenderly loved and cared for his wife, taking her with him upon his journeys and making her happy.

Holbein married and beat his wife; had several children and took care of none of them. His wife grew to look old and worn while he remained a gay looking sport, quite tired of one whom he had had on his hands for ten years. He wandered everywhere and left his family to shift for itself. One writer in speaking of the two men says:

"Drer would never have deserted his wife whom he took with him even on his journey to the Netherlands; and he was bound by the same tenderness to his native town. However much he rejoiced to receive a visit from Bellini at Venice, or when at Antwerp, the artists inst.i.tuted, a torch-light procession in his honour, nothing could have moved him to leave Nuremberg." Drer loved his home; Holbein hated his.

Holbein had a cold, light-blue eye; Drer a soft and tender glance. While Drer lived he was the mainstay of his family--father and brothers. Holbein's father died in misery and his brother's life was disastrous, Hans doing nothing to serve them and looking on at their sufferings indifferently.

There is a court doc.u.ment in existence which tells the particulars of Hans Holbein's arrest for getting into a brawl with a lot of goldsmiths' apprentices during a night of carousal. The court warned him that he would be more severely punished if he did not cease his lawless life and he was made to promise not to "jostle, pinch, nor beat his lawful spouse." When he died he made no provision in his will for his family. There is a picture of his wife, Elizabeth Schmidt, to be seen in his "Madonna" at Solothurn Holbein used her for the model. She then was young and blooming and the model for the child was his own baby; at that time he found them useful.

His life of folly can hardly be excused by impulsiveness or emotion, for his pictures show little of either. He was best at portrait painting. At that time guilds and town councils wanted the portraits of their members preserved in some way, and it was the habit of painters like Holbein to form picturesque groups and give to such dramatic groupings the features of townsmen. Rembrandt did this much later than Holbein, when he painted the "Night Watch," or as it is more properly called, "The Sortie."

Probably Holbein's first important work was to make t.i.tle pages for the second edition of Martin Luther's translation of the New Testament. This MS. was made about the time that Holbein's work began to be of interest to the public, and so the commission was given to him.

After a time this artist went to England with letters of introduction to Sir Thomas More, Chancellor to King Henry VIII. Sir Thomas treated him very kindly and set him to work making portraits of his own family. During the time he was living at More's home in Chelsea, the King himself, used frequently to visit there, and on one occasion he saw the brilliant portraits of the More family and inquired about the artist. Sir Thomas offered the King any of the pictures he liked, but Henry VIII. asked to see the artist. When brought before him, Holbein's fortune seemed to be made for the King asked him to go to court and paint for him, remarking that "now he had the artist he did not care about the pictures."

Holbein seems to have been a favourite with Henry and many anecdotes are told of his life at Whitehall, where he went to live. Once while Holbein was engaged upon a portrait, a n.o.bleman insisted upon entering his studio, after the artist had told him that he was painting the portrait of a lady, by order of the King. The n.o.bleman insisted upon seeing it, but Holbein seized him and threw him down the Stairs; then he rushed to the King and told what had happened. He had no sooner finished than the n.o.bleman appeared and told his story. The King blamed the n.o.bleman for his rudeness.