Hogarth at the Hustings: the Election Entertainment Series and the Birth of Political Satire

Fascinating online lecture from the London Art History Society looking in detail at Hogarth’s series of paintings and prints on an 18th century election.

Former BBC journalist, Rupert Dickens, took us though the four images taking as a premise Ian Hislop’s premise that each work had one big joke and many little ones. Dickens talked us through those jokes an explained where Hogarth was quoting other paintings from Leonardo to Charles le Brun.

He also explained the election which had inspired the series and the process by which Hogarth produced and circulated the images

He finished by looking at how these works became a template for political satire even to the present day and how that differs from the approach of the 18th century cartoonist Gilray and Rowlandson who relied more on caricature.

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