viz.

(Image Credit: Wikipedia)

I came across an interesting set of William Hogarth prints this past week, and thought it’d be fun to throw them up on viz. Titled Industry and Idleness, the 12-part set created in 1747 demonstrates the benefits of handwork and industry, and warns against the prospect of easy entertainment. This is, of course, a reoccurring theme in art work of the eighteenth century, and Hogarth’s dabbling in the matter shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. One can see similar ideas espoused in anything from Daniel Defoe’s great novel, Robinson Crusoe, published early in the century (1719), to Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, which was published much later (1793). Nor are the issues raised in Industry and Idleness that far removed from Hogarth’s other sets of engravings. What stood out to me, however, and the reason why I decided they’d be fun to put up on viz., is that Industry and Idleness is a remarkably boring set of engravings. Given the excitement of Hogarth’s earlier sets, for example A Harlot’s Progress (1731) or Marriage à-la-mode (1743), I’m not sure how successful Industry and Idleness could have been in converting the masses over to good moral behavior.