Analysis of beauty. Plate II.

Previous title, replaced October 2023: A country dance in a long hall; the elegance of the couple on the left contrasts with the ridiculous poses of the more rustic figures beyond representing "unidealized" humanity; straight, angular and round shapes. Engraving by William Hogarth, 1753

[London] : W. Hogarth, 5 March 1753.

1 print : engraving, with etching ; image 36.8 x 49.5 cm.

Complemented by (work): Analysis of beauty. Plate I. (b11962094)

Complemented by (work): The analysis of beauty. Written with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of taste / By William Hogarth. (b10877125)

Analysis of beauty. plate II. Designed, engraved and published by Wm. Hogarth, 5th March 1753, according to act of Parliament (text within print) Around the design are small numbered illustrations. The print is the second plate to Hogarth's treatise The analysis of beauty, London, 1753 and relates specifically to chapter XVII entitled "Of Action", in which he espouses a "variety of lines, chiefly serpentine". The S line can be observed in the outlines of the discarded three-cornered hats as well as in the bounding greyhound dog. The print illustrates Hogarth's notions about the movement and shape of the body, the variety of which can also be observed in the figures in the portraits on the wall: Henry VIII, Charles I, Edward VI, Duchess of Wharton and Queen Elizabeth I etc. "At the top, the extraordinary abstracted landscape and its impressionistic pendant are intended to illustrate the true gradations of aerial perspective and the disagreeable neglect of it " (Hogarth, exhibition catalogue by L. Gowing, 1972, p. 75)

Paulson state II.

R. Paulson, Hogarth's graphic works, London 1989, 3rd edition, no. 196

British Museum Catalogue of political and personal satires, London 1877, vol. 3, no. 3226

Wellcome Collection 38384i