Time Smoking a Picture

William Hogarth - I had forgotten his existence, what little I knew in the first place. Mid-18th century English painting was not my priority, unless it involved ships.

Of course.

I'm not sure this is Rake's Progress, below, properly, but it is Hogarth on time and painting.

Analysis of Beauty, right, is a rather witty and yet serious drawing.

Dr. X will recall my distaste for the dominant aristocratic drawing room paintings of the mid 18th century - bleah. There were astounding exceptions, particularly at the full flowering of the Enlightenment, (here, Joseph Wright of Derby).

The edgy culture energy of the time was certainly among
pampleteers and printers, cartoonists and rabble rousers, people who stood up to Gainsborough and Edmund Burke, saying: Stuff this is yer great hairy arse, ye powdered poppinjay tool!

But perhaps I wrong Gainsborough: here is a study of tired cats: