The Analysis of Beauty, plate 1

When The Analysis of Beauty was published in 1753 it brought about such surprise that Hogarth’s authorship was questioned. How could a painter and engraver, without proper academic education and schooled only in the practice of his craft, seriously present a treatise in theory, one which moreover revealed such scholarly knowledge of the theory and history of art? William Hogarth reduced any doubts completely by producing the manuscript. In brief, his notion of the Line of Beauty can be understood as being derived from the elegant movement, an impulse immediately connected with life and nature. The book included two large-format plates on the subject of English folk dancing and an image of a sculptural park. These prints were also available for purchase separately. However remarkable The Analysis of Beauty is from the perspective of our time, in its day it received little attention and was soon forgotten.