Hogarth on High Life

For the first time in more than 35 years, this edition of the Commentaries on Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode series brings one of the most entertaining and perceptive art texts of the 18th century back in print. Lichtenberg, a genial Anglophile, physicist, and colleague of Goethe, brought all the scabrous and mordant detail of Hogarth’s masterpieces to life. The brilliant translation by Arthur Wensinger is accompanied by an introduction and thorough notes, and by two other important early texts: Rouquet’s commentaries, which were authorized by Hogarth, and a hudibrastic verse explanation published in 1746. The very full illustration includes the Riephenhausen engravings from which Lichtenberg worked, Hogarth’s own engravings, and extensive details.