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Part 4 - The Rake’s Progress - Arrested for debt…

Oh dear, things are not going well for Rakewell Esq. Must be a bit of a credit crunch on…

 For that sedan-chair read a Ferrari, spilling its Z lister celeb onto the street. Hoping to become rich and famous, he would have gone on Big Brother had it existed in 1730. Instead our pauvre hero is arrested. His original girlfriend, unable to see his flaws races to help him. That bizarre hat worn by the fellow on the left sports a leek, making him out as a proud Welshman. No doubt then it is St David’s day, March the first.

There are some beautiful instances of expression. The surprise and terror of the poor gent, the insolence of power in the bailiffs, the self-importance, too, of the Welshman. Rakewell has begun his descent into madness…

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The Tavern Scene by Hogarth, Part 3 of The Rake’s Progress.

Where’s he got to on his spiral of decline? 

Drinking, partying, the life of the Z list celebrity is our hero’s chosen path… Being fleeced by his companions – a watch is being stolen as we watch! The smashed mirror and wine-glasses and broken chair represent the moral decline that we are witnessing. Rakewell displays the careless jollity, which excess alcohol still inspire today. He laughs at the world, which isn’t laughing back, the poor dupe.

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Our hero has dressed the part of prodigal wastrel, sorry man of taste, now he heads straight for fashionable excess. He is surrounded by men desiring to clean out his wallet -a dancing master, fencing teachers, a celebrity gardener, a musician. These men were based on actual people of the day! Hogarth’s work was daring satire.

Rakewell has started giving ostentatious present – a gold snuffbox to a singer. He has taken up all the fashionable extravagances – the room’s decoration suggests he adores the strangely aristocratic/backyard sport of cockfighting.

Another figure is a poet who has written of our hero’s greatness – in return for cold hard cash.

Hogath is telling us that…like most of us, Rakewekk is a dupe. What horrors may befall him you have to wait and see!

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THE YOUNG HERO TAKES POSSESSION OF THE MISER’S EFFECTS

So in plate one we have the young man -thoughtless, extravagant, and licentious. The effects of his behaviour are set up for us to see the coming destructive consequences of his conduct. Here Hogarth contrasts two opposite passions; the unthinking negligence of youth, and the avaricious rapacity of age.

The Rake’s vacant face, his weak gestures tell that he is being set up as a dupe.Ignorant of the value of money, he negligently leaves his bag of  gold in the reach of an old and greedy lawyer who immediately seizes the opportunity to defraud his young employer.

NB: Hogarth had, a few years before, been engaged in a law suit, which gave him some experience with lawyers…What can he have experienced?!

We are going to blog the whole of Hogarth’s series of The Rake’s Progress, I hope you enjoy them!

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