Editing William Hogarth (section)

===Painter and engraver of modern moral subjects===
Hogarth lived in an age when artwork became increasingly commercialized, being viewed in shop windows, [[tavern]]s, and public buildings, and sold in [[old master print|printshops]]. Old hierarchies broke down, and new forms began to flourish: the [[ballad opera]], the [[bourgeois tragedy]], and especially, a new form of [[fiction]] called the [[novel]] with which authors such as [[Henry Fielding]] had great success. Therefore, by that time, Hogarth hit on a new idea: "painting and engraving modern moral subjects ... to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer; my picture was my stage", as he himself remarked in his manuscript notes.

He drew from the highly moralizing [[Protestant]] tradition of Dutch [[genre painting]], and the very vigorous satirical traditions of the English [[broadsheet]] and other types of popular print. In England the fine arts had little comedy in them before Hogarth. His prints were expensive, and remained so until early 19th-century reprints brought them to a wider audience.