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The Bench (Hogarth)
Encyclopedia
The Bench is the title of both a 1758 oil-on-canvas
painting by the English artist William Hogarth
, and a print issued by him in the same year. Unlike many of Hogarth's engravings produced from painted originals, the print differs considerably from the painting. It was intended as a demonstration of the differences between character painting, caricature and outré—developing on the theme he had begun to address in Characters and Caricaturas
(his subscription ticket for Marriage à-la-mode)—but Hogarth was unhappy with the result as it showed only "characters", and he continued to work on the piece until his death.
, Hogarth claimed that the critics had branded all his women as harlots and all his men as caricatures. He complained:
He had made an early attempt to address what he perceived as a mistake on the part of his critics with the subscription ticket for his 1743 series Marriage à-la-mode, on which he contrasted a number of his reproductions of classical caricatures - from Annibale Carracci
, Pier Leone Ghezzi
and Leonardo da Vinci
- with his version of some Raphael
characters (from the Cartoons
) and a hundred of his own character profiles. After Hogarth's death the subscription ticket was reproduced as print in its own right, minus the subscription details for Marriage a-la-mode, and came to be known as Characters and Caricaturas (from the inscription Hogarth had added at the foot of the original).
Hogarth intended to formally address the point with The Bench by creating a print for sale that showed characters, caricatures and outré. Hogarth dismissed outré as a subset of caricature, but considered caricature to be as far below the art of character painting as the "wild attempts of children". In his own comments on The Bench he compared character, caricature, and outré to comedy, tragedy, and farce in the theatre. Comedy, which he aligned with character, showed a true view of nature, as nothing was outside reality. Tragedy, which he compared to caricature, heightened reality, exaggerating aspects of its subjects. Farce and outré both took this heightening of features to ridiculous extremes. Hogarth scholar Ronald Paulson
suggests that by the time he produced The Bench Hogarth had become very sensitive to the criticisms levelled at him as a painter, and was anxious both to distance himself once and for all from the caricaturists, and to prove both that he could capture the true nature of his subjects. Hogarth originally dedicated the print to the soldier and caricaturist George Townshend
, but removed the dedication before the print was issued, fearing it would be misinterpreted; some variations on the first state of the print still show "Addressed to the Hon'ble Col. T--ns--d". Townshend was just the sort of talented amateur Hogarth despised: he used his talents as a caricaturist to attack his political opponents and gain an advantage for himself; by trying to differentiate character and caricature Hogarth hoped place himself in a class with the Renaissance painters and disassociate his work from that of the gentleman caricaturists for whom caricature was a enjoyable distraction or tool for their own advancement.
The surviving painting and original (first state) print shows four judges sitting below the King's Arms, in session in the Court of Common Pleas
. Hogarth ridicules the lack of ability or interest among the judiciary, whose "shallow discernment, natural disposition, or wilful inattention, is here perfectly described in their faces". None of the four judges is concerned with the case before them: one is busy other business; one is examining a former deposition or some material unconnected to the case before him; and the final two are lost on various stages of sleep. The four judges have been identified as the Honourable William Noel; Sir John Willes
, the Chief Justice, the heavyset judge in the centre (with pince-nez
in the engraving); Henry, later Earl Bathurst
, and later still Lord Chancellor; and Sir Edward Clive, who is dozing on Bathurst's shoulder. Willes was known as a hanging judge
- he had refused mercy for Bosavern Penlez
in the cause célèbre
of 1749,The Newgate Calendar
's record of the case of Penlez states: but was equally famed as a rake, and he is the main target for Hogarth's satire here. Hogarth's representation of Willes has been suggested as the inspiration for the character of Mr. Justice Harbottle in Sheridan Le Fanu
's In a Glass Darkly
(1872). The motto of the Order of the Garter
"Honi soit qui mal y pense" below the King's Arms has been deliberately cut off in Hogarth's composition leaving only the evil thoughts of "Mal y pense" floating above the judges' heads. Paulson says that the painting's power derives from the juxtaposition of the frailty - both bodily and moral - of the judges themselves with the authority indued by the robes of state, and compares it to both Hogarth's second portrait of Bishop Benjamin Hoadly
and his print of Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn
, both of which contrast the human condition of the subjects with the grandeur of their dress. Hogarth designed and engraved the plates himself from his original painting. The first state print, which was issued on 4 September 1758, was intended to show the four judges as a demonstration of character portraiture. It is headed "Character" and subtitled "Of the different meanings of the words Character, Caricatura, and Outre, in Painting and Drawing".
Minor variations on the first state exist with different wording in the titles and inscription. The second state, the only known variation in the composition of the picture itself, is incomplete. The King's Arms have been removed and replaced by eight heads, in two subject groups, one showing character portrait and the other caricatures of the same figures. According to the addition made to the inscription plate by John Ireland, Hogarth started the alterations during October 1764, and was still working on them up to his death on 26 October 1764. Bathurst's appears again among these heads: his character portrait is reproduced to the far right in the character group, and a caricature appears in the same position in the caricature group. The other three figures in the two groups show two men looking eagerly at third, in poses reminiscent of the Cartoons
of Raphael
that Hogarth had used in Character and Caricatura.
; Paulson suggests it may have been a rejected passage from that book, and Trusler, a nineteenth-century commentator on Hogarth, goes as far as to wrongly attribute the inscription as an excerpt from chapter six.
Text of the inscription:
in Cambridge
. The first and second states along with the inscriptions which accompanied both sold in Baker's 1825 auction of Hogarth's works for £6. 12s. 6d. The picture has some interest to scholars of Hogarth because of its continuation of the theme started in Characters and Caricaturas, and because the second state was unfinished at the time of Hogarth's death, but the picture is usually dismissed as little more than a jab at the legal profession in the mold of others of Hogarth's satirical prints which mocked various of the professions, such as Scholars at a Lecture and The Company of Undertakers.
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
painting by the English artist William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
, and a print issued by him in the same year. Unlike many of Hogarth's engravings produced from painted originals, the print differs considerably from the painting. It was intended as a demonstration of the differences between character painting, caricature and outré—developing on the theme he had begun to address in Characters and Caricaturas
Characters and Caricaturas
Characters and Caricaturas is a engraving by English artist William Hogarth, that he produced as the subscription ticket for his 1743 series of prints, Marriage à-la-mode, and which was eventually issued as a print in its own right...
(his subscription ticket for Marriage à-la-mode)—but Hogarth was unhappy with the result as it showed only "characters", and he continued to work on the piece until his death.
Background
Hogarth had often been accused of being a caricaturist, but regarded this as a slur on his work. In his book on art, The Analysis of BeautyThe Analysis of Beauty
The Analysis of Beauty is a book written by William Hogarth and published in 1753, which describes Hogarth's theories of visual beauty and grace in a manner accessible to the common man of his day....
, Hogarth claimed that the critics had branded all his women as harlots and all his men as caricatures. He complained:
He had made an early attempt to address what he perceived as a mistake on the part of his critics with the subscription ticket for his 1743 series Marriage à-la-mode, on which he contrasted a number of his reproductions of classical caricatures - from Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early career:Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family...
, Pier Leone Ghezzi
Pier Leone Ghezzi
Pier Leone Ghezzi was an Italian Rococo painter and caricaturist active in Rome.Ghezzi was born in Rome. His father, Giuseppe Ghezzi, , also trained Antonio Amorosi, and was a secretary to the Roman Accademia di San Luca...
and Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
- with his version of some Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
characters (from the Cartoons
Raphael Cartoons
The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, painted by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515-16 and showing scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles...
) and a hundred of his own character profiles. After Hogarth's death the subscription ticket was reproduced as print in its own right, minus the subscription details for Marriage a-la-mode, and came to be known as Characters and Caricaturas (from the inscription Hogarth had added at the foot of the original).
Hogarth intended to formally address the point with The Bench by creating a print for sale that showed characters, caricatures and outré. Hogarth dismissed outré as a subset of caricature, but considered caricature to be as far below the art of character painting as the "wild attempts of children". In his own comments on The Bench he compared character, caricature, and outré to comedy, tragedy, and farce in the theatre. Comedy, which he aligned with character, showed a true view of nature, as nothing was outside reality. Tragedy, which he compared to caricature, heightened reality, exaggerating aspects of its subjects. Farce and outré both took this heightening of features to ridiculous extremes. Hogarth scholar Ronald Paulson
Ronald Paulson
Ronald Paulson , is an American professor of English, a specialist in English 18th-century art and culture, and English artist William Hogarth.-Education:...
suggests that by the time he produced The Bench Hogarth had become very sensitive to the criticisms levelled at him as a painter, and was anxious both to distance himself once and for all from the caricaturists, and to prove both that he could capture the true nature of his subjects. Hogarth originally dedicated the print to the soldier and caricaturist George Townshend
George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend
Field Marshal George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, PC , known as The Viscount Townshend from 1764 to 1787, was a British soldier who reached the rank of field marshal.-Early life:...
, but removed the dedication before the print was issued, fearing it would be misinterpreted; some variations on the first state of the print still show "Addressed to the Hon'ble Col. T--ns--d". Townshend was just the sort of talented amateur Hogarth despised: he used his talents as a caricaturist to attack his political opponents and gain an advantage for himself; by trying to differentiate character and caricature Hogarth hoped place himself in a class with the Renaissance painters and disassociate his work from that of the gentleman caricaturists for whom caricature was a enjoyable distraction or tool for their own advancement.
Picture
Court of Common Pleas (England)
The Court of Common Pleas, or Common Bench, was a common law court in the English legal system that covered "common pleas"; actions between subject and subject, which did not concern the king. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century after splitting from the Exchequer of Pleas, the Common...
. Hogarth ridicules the lack of ability or interest among the judiciary, whose "shallow discernment, natural disposition, or wilful inattention, is here perfectly described in their faces". None of the four judges is concerned with the case before them: one is busy other business; one is examining a former deposition or some material unconnected to the case before him; and the final two are lost on various stages of sleep. The four judges have been identified as the Honourable William Noel; Sir John Willes
John Willes (judge)
Sir John Willes was an English lawyer and judge who was the longest-serving Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas since the 15th century. He was also a Member of Parliament....
, the Chief Justice, the heavyset judge in the centre (with pince-nez
Pince-nez
Pince-nez are a style of spectacles, popular in the 19th century, which are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, to pinch, and nez, nose....
in the engraving); Henry, later Earl Bathurst
Earl Bathurst
Earl Bathurst, of Bathurst in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1772 for Allen Bathurst, 1st Baron Bathurst. He was a politician and an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole...
, and later still Lord Chancellor; and Sir Edward Clive, who is dozing on Bathurst's shoulder. Willes was known as a hanging judge
Hanging Judge
"Hanging judge" is an unofficial term for a judge who has gained renown for punishment by sentencing convicted criminals to death by hanging.More broadly, the term is applied to judges who have gained a reputation for imposing unusually harsh sentences, even in jurisdictions where the death penalty...
- he had refused mercy for Bosavern Penlez
Bosavern Penlez
Bosavern Penlez was a British wig maker who was convicted and executed for rioting along with co-defendant John Wilson. He was sentenced and hanged on October 18, 1749....
in the cause célèbre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
of 1749,The Newgate Calendar
The Newgate Calendar
The Newgate Calendar, subtitled The Malefactors' Bloody Register, was a popular work of improving literature in the 18th and 19th centuries....
's record of the case of Penlez states: but was equally famed as a rake, and he is the main target for Hogarth's satire here. Hogarth's representation of Willes has been suggested as the inspiration for the character of Mr. Justice Harbottle in Sheridan Le Fanu
Sheridan Le Fanu
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era....
's In a Glass Darkly
In a Glass Darkly
In a Glass Darkly is a collection of five short stories by Sheridan Le Fanu, first published in 1872, the year before his death. The second and third are revised versions of previously published stories, and the fourth and fifth are long enough to be called novellas.The title is taken from 1...
(1872). The motto of the Order of the Garter
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
"Honi soit qui mal y pense" below the King's Arms has been deliberately cut off in Hogarth's composition leaving only the evil thoughts of "Mal y pense" floating above the judges' heads. Paulson says that the painting's power derives from the juxtaposition of the frailty - both bodily and moral - of the judges themselves with the authority indued by the robes of state, and compares it to both Hogarth's second portrait of Bishop Benjamin Hoadly
Benjamin Hoadly
Benjamin Hoadly was an English clergyman, who was successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester. He is best known as the initiator of the Bangorian Controversy.-Life:...
and his print of Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn
Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn
Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn is a painting from 1738 by William Hogarth reproduced as an engraving and issued with Four Times of the Day as a five print set in the same year. It depicts a company of actresses preparing for their final performance before the troupe is disbanded as a result...
, both of which contrast the human condition of the subjects with the grandeur of their dress. Hogarth designed and engraved the plates himself from his original painting. The first state print, which was issued on 4 September 1758, was intended to show the four judges as a demonstration of character portraiture. It is headed "Character" and subtitled "Of the different meanings of the words Character, Caricatura, and Outre, in Painting and Drawing".
Minor variations on the first state exist with different wording in the titles and inscription. The second state, the only known variation in the composition of the picture itself, is incomplete. The King's Arms have been removed and replaced by eight heads, in two subject groups, one showing character portrait and the other caricatures of the same figures. According to the addition made to the inscription plate by John Ireland, Hogarth started the alterations during October 1764, and was still working on them up to his death on 26 October 1764. Bathurst's appears again among these heads: his character portrait is reproduced to the far right in the character group, and a caricature appears in the same position in the caricature group. The other three figures in the two groups show two men looking eagerly at third, in poses reminiscent of the Cartoons
Raphael Cartoons
The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, painted by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515-16 and showing scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles...
of Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
that Hogarth had used in Character and Caricatura.
Differences between the painting and the engraving
Most of Hogarth's engravings taken from his original paintings are fairly faithful reproductions within the limitations of the two media (where both survive to allow us to compare them). Occasionally a detail is clearer in the print from the engraving than in the painting, or a nuance is missing from the print, any colours from the painting are obviously lost in the black ink reproduction of the engraving, and the images are normally reversed, because the process of printing from the engraving naturally reverses the images from the plate. In The Bench there are a number of differences between the original painting and the prints. While the second state differs considerably because of the replacement of the King's Arms with the eight caricatured heads, the first state also has differences, chiefly in the composition of Justice Willes. He holds a quill in his right hand in both the painting and engraving, even though the composition is reversed. In the painting the quill is raised as if preparing to write, while in the print the hand holding the quill is more relaxed. In the painting he holds a small piece of paper in his left hand, in the engraving it has become a small book or sheaf of notes, the contents of which he appears to be studying. He has had a pair of pince-nez added in the engraving. Noel has also had a pair of glasses added. Willes' eyebrows, which had been black in the painting, are white in the engraving.Inscription
The print was accompanied by a second sheet of the same size with a lengthy inscription detailing Hogarth's motives for creating the piece. In a letter to Hogarth, a correspondent identified only as "B" noted that the print seemed of minor importance compared to the inscription, indeed it was the only written work that Hogarth released under his own name after the completion of The Analysis of BeautyThe Analysis of Beauty
The Analysis of Beauty is a book written by William Hogarth and published in 1753, which describes Hogarth's theories of visual beauty and grace in a manner accessible to the common man of his day....
; Paulson suggests it may have been a rejected passage from that book, and Trusler, a nineteenth-century commentator on Hogarth, goes as far as to wrongly attribute the inscription as an excerpt from chapter six.
Text of the inscription
History
The original painting was bought by George Hay, a prominent civil servant in the Pitt Government, who owned several of Hogarth's works and whose portrait Hogarth had painted in 1757, then passed to a Mr. Edwards, and is now held by the Fitzwilliam MuseumFitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. The first and second states along with the inscriptions which accompanied both sold in Baker's 1825 auction of Hogarth's works for £6. 12s. 6d. The picture has some interest to scholars of Hogarth because of its continuation of the theme started in Characters and Caricaturas, and because the second state was unfinished at the time of Hogarth's death, but the picture is usually dismissed as little more than a jab at the legal profession in the mold of others of Hogarth's satirical prints which mocked various of the professions, such as Scholars at a Lecture and The Company of Undertakers.