William Hogarth's contribution to aesthetics
William Hogarth (1697-1764) was a British artist famous for his satirical portraits of society. He grew up in London in a lower middle class family, with his father imprisoned for several years during Hogarth’s childhood. To make a living he learned the craft of engraving before successfully publishing his mostly satirical and moralizing paintings and engravings, which made him famous.
Hogarth is also known for his theoretical treatise "The Analysis of Beauty", in which he tried to define principles of beauty and grace. Great attention has been paid to his "line of beauty", an S-shaped line that resulted from systematic observations of beauty in nature, works of art, and everyday objects. Despite many critical responses to "The Analysis of Beauty", international resonance has been positive. Among others, Gustav Theodor Fechner, the father of empirical aesthetics, considered Hogarth‘s approach as innovative and from below, i.e., empirically driven.
Hogarth‘s ideas have been cited in a broad range of fields such as landscaping, architecture, hairdressing, calligraphy, and dance.
Hogarth's writing on aesthetics
- Hogarth, W. (1753). The Analysis of Beauty: Written with a View of Fixing the Fluctuating Ideas of Taste. Printed by J. Reeves for the Author.
Related literature
- Hübner, R., & Ufken, E. (2023). On the beauty of vases: Birkhoff’s aesthetic measure versus Hogarth’s line of beauty. Frontiers in Psychology, 14.<Open Access>
- Hübner, R., Lewis, D. M. G., Al-Shawaf, L., Semchenko, A. Y., & Flores, J. (2023). Evidence that the aesthetic preference for Hogarth’s Line of Beauty is an evolutionary by-product. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 4134. <Open Access>.
- Hübner, R., & Ufken, E. (2022). Is Hogarth’s (1753) ‘line of beauty’ really the most beautiful? An empirical answer after more than 250 years. i-Perception, 13(2).<Open Access>