Hogarth on High Life : The Marriage a La Mode Series from Georg Cristoph Lichtenberg s Commentaries (Hardcover)

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg s rich extensive commentaries on Hogarth s Marriage a la Mode paintings which satirized 18th-century marriages of convenience brilliantly translated and with much additional material Marriage a la Mode is the most famous of William Hogarth s progresses or series paintings the story of a marriage de convenance and its unhappy consequences in fashionable 18th-century London. Contemporaries relished teasing out the meaning of all its rich detail and the most extensive and popular of all the commentaries on the artist s accomplishment: was that of the witty many-sided German Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Brilliantly translated thoroughly annotated this text is accompanied by the earlier and less-known commentary by Hogarth s friend the French-Swiss enameller Jean-Andre Rouquet and by a selection of Lichtenberg s remarks (in letters to friends) on his purposes and problems in interpreting Hogarth s work. Included also is another and very rare explanation of the plates an anonymous 1746 pamphlet titled Marriage A-la-Mode-An Humorous Tale in Six Cantos. A foreword on Lichtenberg and an historical essay on Hogarth s work by Mr. Coley supply necessary background on artist and commentary. Of Hogarth s greatness there is little that need be said. But it is worth noting that of his several progresses or modern moral subjects only Marriage a la Mode centers on the upper levels of British society - the aristocracy and the mercantile class.