Hogarth, William

ho'garth, William (1697-1764), a celebrated London painter and engraver. His subjects were mainly the follies and vices of the great metropolis. The Harlot's Progress and The Rake's Progress were series of seven pictures each, depicting the downfall and bitter end of a young woman and of a young man respectively. A similar series, Marriage a la Mode, satirizes the follies of high life. These pictures and many others, as The Sleeping Congregation and The Election of a Member of Parliament, had a wide circulation as volumes of engravings, and were influential in reforming London society. See Caricature