The Bench is painted by William Hogarth (1697-1764), the most original painter in England during his age. He invented a new species of dramatic painting and is one of the great masters of satire in engraving and painting.
Art Analysis
William Hogarth’s use of elements of art like color, and principles of art like contrast and expression to convey the intent of the artist. Furthermore, he uses all the strategies to side satire the low social ethos. William Hogarth believes that by depicting the drawing as a piece of comical caricature, it reflects common perception of senior judge at that time period: pompous and indifferent men, inattentive to most of their case, and half asleep or even drunk when cases were being heard.
However, base on the background information, the reality of law was in fact often quite different. During the 18thcentury senior judges were highly active in criminal proceedings, especially in felony cases where full defense counsel was denied to defendants until 1836. In the absence of defense lawyers, many judges adopted the role of chairman on the proceedings, and in fact acted as chief prosecutor on behalf of the crown: examining witness, summing up cases and offering direction to juries. With such control over the administration of justices, individual judges therefore wielded enormous influence on the outcome of trials.
The author depicts those characters with exaggerated outlines and facial expression to show a perfect and true picture of human nature. In the painting, the nose of all the character seem really sharp and high, and their mouth are all pointing downward. By pointing out those parts, Hogarth ridicules the lack of ability or interest among the judiciary, whose "shallow discernment, natural disposition, or willful inattention", is here perfectly described in their faces. Also the exaggerated outlines of the characters’ body emphasize that the author was criticizing the current government and low social ethos.
The author also chose to use the contraction in color to bring our focus to the attitude of the characters in the painting. We can see that only one judge is concerning the case and Hogarth puts him in the center of the painting. The judge is holding a pen and trying to think of something from his blank mind, however, it doesn't seem to work that well. The rest of the judges are not concerned with the cases before them: one is examining a former deposition or some material unconnected to the case before him; and the other two are sleeping. The judges that are not pay attention were drew in a darker color than the center one, this strategy give people a feeling about the justice of the main character and the negative attitude towards the rest of them. Furthermore, the painter again criticized the deterioration of social atmosphere: no moral standards, no code of conduct, no concept of right and wrong and no ideal pursuit.
Work Citation
“The Bench (Hogarth).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Nov. 2016,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bench_(Hogarth).
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