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Today is election day, so let’s celebrate with some election humor, in the form of William Hogarth’s 1754 painting, “An Election Entertainment.” This complex painting, part one of a four-part series, has more than a few interesting bits!
1. Depicting a Whig election banquet in the fictional British town of “Guzzledown,” the painting contains two Whig candidates at the left side of the table, under the flag bearing the Whig motto of “Liberty and Loyalty.”
2. One Whig candidate, nicknamed “Sir Commodity Taxem,” has had his ring stolen by a little girl, while a reveler with a pipe is burning his hair. The other candidate is being assaulted by two drunks.
3. The black banner on the floor reads “Give us back our 11 days,” a reference to Britain’s adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752. To adjust to the calendar, Wednesday, September 3 was followed by Thursday, September 14, which left workers feeling as though they had been cheated out of 11 days of wages.
4. At least 3 men are injured in the painting: a soldier whose comrade is filling his head wound with gin; a man who has been struck by a brick thrown through the window; and the Lord Mayor, who has passed out after eating too many oysters and is now being bled by a physician.
5. Several of William Hogarth’s earlier series were widely popular, and thus they were often pirated. The Copyright Act of 1735 came about, in part, as a result of Hogarth’s campaign against the profiteers.
6. Hogarth’s father ran an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house and, while Hogarth was still young, was imprisoned for five years in Fleet Prison for debt; William Hogarth never discussed his father’s imprisonment.
[A large copy of “An Election Entertainment” is available in the Web Gallery of Art.]
‘Feel Art Again’ appears every Tuesday and Thursday.
Comments (5)
Comment
There’s almost too much going on in this painting for me to wrap my head around. That’s funny about how the workers thought they were losing wages.
This is such a cool painting. I wonder why nobody else has commented?
posted by Kelly on 11-6-2007 at 3:39 pm
Wow, this is some busy painting! It seems there is a lot of social commentary (and now, history) contained in this painting, and although I wouldn’t want it hanging in my living room, it would certainly spark some interesting conversations…
posted by Therese on 11-6-2007 at 9:16 pm
That’s funny. It’s just the sort of thing that would hang in my living room. Along with the WWI recruitment poster already there.
There are many things historical and sociological to be learned from both.
posted by Bassman on 11-7-2007 at 6:28 am
It’s funny, but I just had a lecture on this series of paintings in by British History class. We were looking at eighteenth century elections. You can also see the orange flag, for William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution, and a Tory mob through the window.
My favorite was the painting showing the actual voting, when the voters waiting in line are a lunatic tied to his chair and an invalid being carried by his nurses.
Also, I can imagine losing eleven days could have a serious effect on workers, especially if say, they were paid by the day but had to pay rent by the month. It could also create a whole lot of small, annoying problems with contracts and such.
posted by bob on 11-7-2007 at 8:10 am
I wouldn’t mind waking up tomorrow and having it be 11 days later. It’d be Thanksgiving break :)
Thanks for another great post Andréa (yea…I finally remembered the keystrok to get the accent in your name :)
posted by Amy on 11-9-2007 at 12:20 pm