Guess at the Rest: Cracking the Hogarth Code [Paperback]

Elisabeth Soulier-Detis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0718892151 | ISBN-13: 978-0718892159 | Publication Date: August 1, 2010

This engaging study reveals how a half-hidden thread of Masonic symbolism runs through Hogarth's work. The classical and Biblical references, whose ambiguity and apparent paradoxical relation with the eighteenth-century situations depicted have often been underlined, gain coherence and unity when they are analyzed in the symbolic framework of freemasonry and alchemy Hogarth was busy both using and concealing in his prints. The coded meaning is often entirely at odds with the surface one, a fact suspected but never proved by critics so far. A very original and titillating book for academics and general reader alike. Readers will be intrigued by the secrecy of symbols from mythological, biblical and Masonic references and hidden codes that have to be deciphered. Furthermore, they will be also left intrigued by the secret message that the very popular and well-known painter is attempting to deliver. Academics will be interested in the book since this thorough approach has never been proposed by any of Hogarth's scholars so far.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elisabeth Soulier-Detis has just retired from the position of Professor of British Eighteenth-Century at the Paul Valery University of Montpellier. She is director for France of the research network on eighteenth-century Europe. Her major academic interests are eighteenth-century British novelists (Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne) and eighteenth-century British art. She is also the General Editor of The European Spectator, a bilingual collection published by the presses of Paul Valery University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Lutterworth Press (August 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0718892151
• ISBN-13: 978-0718892159
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,724,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars A Misconceived Approach to Hogarth, October 12, 2010

By 

Alexander S. Gourlay - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Guess at the Rest: Cracking the Hogarth Code (Paperback)

Something's cracked here, but it's not the Hogarth Code. Hogarth probably did use Masonic symbolic materials along with heraldry, emblem books, conventional and unconventional Christian iconography as well as many other symbolic and expressive systems in creating the gloriously intricate pictorial language of his pictures. Elisabeth Soulier-Detis has studied Hogarth's Masonic context extensively, but the readings lack interpretative tact and do not significantly advance our understanding of the works. Further, the book is ridiculously overpriced on this side of the Atlantic.