The artwork of William HogarthThe artwork of William Hogarth is heavily influenced by social factors and the culture of 18th century England. In many of his works, Hogarth satirizes English society, rich and poor alike. His paintings and engravings depict the society he lived in, with the customs and lifestyles of the time all shown in his works. Most of the time he is satirical, exaggerating some of people's flaws, other times he is bitingly realistic in his opinions. It seems that no one is safe from his caricatures, from the lords and ladies, to the slaves, the servants, the prostitutes, the criminals and the poor. Overall, his work shows the culture of a broad cross-section of the English people of this period, often depicted in a very humorous way. An important note is that the engravings were produced from the opposite side to the paintings, so the engravings are seen with the left and right sides reversed from how they appear in the paintings. I will discuss how his works show many aspects of life in England at the time. I will focus in particular on many of the series of works Hogarth produced, because by telling a story with his work and not just painting a single picture, he shows many more aspects of the society he lived in than just the physical appearance. Some of Hogarth's individual paintings show many details of 18th century English society. Hogarth recorded Beer Street to show a happy town drinking the "good" drink of English ale, versus Gin Lane which showed what would happen if people started drinking gin which as a harder liquor would cause more problems for society. People are shown as healthy, happy and hard-working in Beer Street, while in Gin Lane, they are scratches...... middle of paper ......//come.to/William_Hogarth2. http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=8943. http://www.haleysteele.com/hogarth/toc.html4. http://cgfa.sunsite.dk//hogarth/hogarth_bio.htm5. http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/hogarth/hogarth5.html6. http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/hogarth/7. http://juliette.nfrance.com/~ju8655/hogarth/documents/file003.pdf8. http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8079. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0422/is_2_80/ai_54073985/print10.http://33.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HO/HOGARTH_WILLIAM.htm11.http://www.artchive.com/artchive /H/hogarth.html12.http://virtualart.admin.tomsk.ru/hogarth/index.html13.http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/collections/object.php?object_id=1198&back=%2Fguided_tours% 2Fdrama_tour%2F18th_century%2Fcensorship.php%3F14.http://humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=g&p=c&a=p&ID=178