Hogarth, Time Smokes a Picture
Got to see my new favorite Hogarth print today (well, maybe the perspective one is still my favorite) Time Smokes a Picture. It is Hogarth’s comment on the cult of old paintings and the mania for dark varnish on Old Master paintings. What really makes the print work is not just that the scythe of Time has fallen through the painting, but that the painting (in the first state) is rendered in mezzotint, the most popular method of reproductive printmaking in Hogarth’s day.
