William Hogarth and David Hockney: The Rake's Progress

William Hogarth, Plate 8 from A Rake’s Progress (1762)

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The eighth scene from William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress is a work of art which epitomises the phenomenon of an artist returning to an earlier work after a significant period of time and serves as a source of particular inspiration for later artists.

The title of Hogarth's series is borrowed from a popular book at the time, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Hogarth’s series tells the story of Tom Rakewell, a man who inherits a fortune from his father, wastes his money on luxuries in London, and falls into self-destruction and ultimately madness. In 1733 Hogarth produced paintings, functioning as storyboards, but the series is primarily known through a set of engravings made by Hogarth in 1735. In the final eighth scene, Tom Rakewell is depicted in Bethlehem Royal Hospital (Bedlam), a mental asylum in London. Surrounded by other inmates, he is observed by fashionably dressed young women who visit the institution as a form of entertainment.

In 1762, Hogarth returned to this print and added a medallion on the wall between the two cells. This can be interpreted as a comment and critique on the treatment of the mentally ill in Britain. Specifically, however, it acts as an analogy between the current state of the country and a madhouse. For Jane Kromm, Hogarth proposes that “it was the immoderate pursuit of power that posed the most serious threat to sanity.”[1] The text underneath the scene reveals evidence of this reworking. At the bottom is written, ‘Invented Painted & Engraved by Wm Hogarth, & Publish’d June ye 25 1735’. Above is added, ‘Retouched by the Author’. It is striking that Hogarth declared this act in such an obvious and open way. However, these revisions were made towards the end of Hogarth’s life at a period when he was facing depression and revisited several of his prints. In the same year, he reworked Enthusiasm Delineated of 1761, publishing it as Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism: A Medley.

These reworkings may seem minimal, but they change the way we view this work. The print still functions as a key part of the narrative of The Rake’s Progress, depicting the final days of the protagonist. However, Hogarth has also taken it out of the narrative, making it a stand-alone work with a particular political stance. He did not repeatedly return to this work – it was not a constant source of interest to him. However, at a specific moment it functioned as a vehicle, allowing him to comment upon contemporary society and express some of his own personal feelings. Hogarth is the second hand, making a new work out of an existing work.

Intriguingly, the story continues. Between 1960 and 1962, David Hockney produced a series of sixteen prints entitled The Rake’s Progress. Whilst Hogarth’s engravings convey the mental downfall of a fictional man after he indulges in London, Hockney’s version is a semi-autobiographical account of a man’s journey to America, ultimately resulting in a loss of personal identity. The final print, Plate 8A, is entitled Bedlam and depicts the Rake amongst other robots, indistinguishable except for an arrow. The use of the word Bedlam functions as a metaphor for a personal mental prison in which individual thought and feelings are lost.

David Hockney, ‘The Bedlam’ from A Rake’s Progress (1961-3)

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Alongside these prints, in 1975 Hockey also designed the sets for Igor Stravinsky’s opera of The Rake’s Progress, performed at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1951. John Cox, the director, was aware of Hockney’s response to Hogarth in print over ten years earlier and approached him, hoping to get him involved. Hockney once again reflected upon Hogarth’s works and produced a separate response to the series, this time with heavy cross-hatching. Unlike the first response which used the print’s content as a metaphor, here Hockney recalls the graffiti on the wall and the characters of the inmates in the original. Critics remarked on “the closeness of Hockney’s set not only to Hogarth’s images, but to Stravinsky’s score.”[2] The production itself has been revived in different countries over the years, altered each time by different composers and settings.

David Hockney, ‘The Bedlam’ from A Rake’s Progress (1961-3)

www.tate.org.uk

Plate 8 from Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress is a work which was not only revisited by its own creator but also served as inspiration for a much later artist. Hockney produced two very different responses to this work for different purposes and in different settings. This work raises interesting questions – can the same artist be a second hand? How much of Hogarth remains in Hockney’s works? Can a single artist have more than one voice?