The Enraged
Musician: Hogarths Musical Imagery
by Jeremy Barlow
Ashgate, Aldershot UK, 2005
388 pp., illus., 184 b/w, 17 music examples.
Trade, £65
ISBN: 1-80414615X.
Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University
mosher@svsu.edu
As a boy I saw a weird, complex, burly
narrative print by William Hogarth (1697-1764)
included in George Perrys The
Penguin Book of Comics, prominent
among the ancestors of the 20th century
comic strip and comic book. On a 1999
trip to London, I delighted in how Sir
John Soames Museum displayed a complete
suite of "The Rakes Progress", the
1735 story in eight pictures from which
I saw the Hogarth print in Perrys
book.
Hogarth began satirical prints while still
in his twenties. He often used musical
iconography, sometimes as symbols from
classical myths or emblems of virtues.
In the proto-surrealist "Royalty, Episcopy
and the Law" (worthy of Grandville a century
later), Hogarth showed a bishop as a twangy
Jews harp. It is always enjoyable
to view the imagery that constructs the
various mythologies of musicians. Instruments
are essential to the proto-pop stars Liszt
and Wagner in the Romantic era, to Dock
Boggs and Woody Guthrie on 20th century
front porches and boxcars, to the Stratocasters
of the party animals of contemporary showbars.
Hogarths musical interests are mapped
here, by eighteenth century authors or
ascertained from fragmentary evidence.
The author notes the accuracy of the depiction
of instruments (often reversed in prints
from their original oil sketches) and
discusses solo fiddlers, ballad singers,
and songs. Hogarth was a fan of music
and belonged to a subscription society
called the Academy of Vocal Music, which
performed works by 16th century composers,
such as Palestrina. Italian opera was
popular in mid-century London, as was
its prominent practitioner, the German
composer George Frederick Handel. Hogarth
may have met Handel, for both were supporters
of a foundlings hospital. Hogarth
made fun of operas chatty and inattentive
upper class audience in prints. It is
not known if the artist sang or played
any musical instrument himself.
While Hogarth depicted masquerades with
harlequins, he took delight in his prints
of a rough music procession, obnoxious
noise called a skimmington (in France,
charivari). A skimmington appears in Samuel
Butlers "Hudibras," a poem that
may have inspired Hogarth to try his hand
at the topic. These events were often
accompanied by the burlesque instruments
the saltbox and the bladder-and-string,
and author Barlow provides a rich chapter
on burlesques of music. His upcoming book,
entitled Mock Music. Skimmington
revelers followed a petticoat hoisted
as a standard or flag, like the rudest
Punk rock parade of protesters. These
are the shenanigans that enrage "The Enraged
Musician". Hogarth published this print
in 1741, at age 44, and it shows an Italian
classical musician with his hands over
his ears as rough music fills the street
outside his window. The identity of the
apoplectic musician is disputed, and may
have been prominent contemporaries Castruccy,
Vercini, Cevetto the cellist or a flautist
Festin. The noisy tormentors include a
ragged oboe player, howling cats on a
distant rooftop, and the various noises
of tradespeople on the street advertising
themselves. A sow gelder announces his
presence with a blast of his horn. A ballad
singer, of low status because shes
an unwed mother, sings to the accompaniment
of her squalling baby. Theres a
knife sharpener with his wheel set up
in the street grinding away. A fishmonger
hollers, whom the 18th century book Cryes
of London notes would cry FLOUN-DA, A,
A, RS! A dustman (trash collector) carrying
his basket cries DUST, HO! DUST! HO! DUST!
A pretty young woman sells milk, and in
the prints of the time a buxom milkmaid
was often an allegory for artistic inspiration.
A well-dressed little girl (perhaps the
musicians daughter) is fascinated
by a little boy nonchalantly peeing in
front of her.
The methodical book is profusely illustrated
with excellent prints, photos of historical
instruments and publications, discussion
of all instruments that Hogarth ever depicted,
and a poem that depicts a skimmington
on St. Cecelias Day. Author Barlow
notes its satire of the Italian opera
fad in London, and how it takes political
digs at the Whig Prime Minister that the
audience of that time would appreciate.
Hogarth attended numerous performances
of that English take on Italian opera,
"The Beggars Opera" by John Gay,
and painted numerous versions of his favorite
scenes. Tales of other daring eighteenth
century criminals also inspired him.
Barlow notes changes between the first
and second states of the print. A broken
doll is removed from its place in the
first state, in front of a dollhouse assembled
from bricks. A little military drummer
boy in the first state becomes a bewigged
and rotund miniature adult in the second,
like a diminutive Dr. Samuel Johnson.
Barlow is so focused upon the musical
imagery that he sometimes leaves out other
details that cry for explanation as loudly
as any London tradesperson. Why does the
figure of a dustman in the first state
of "The Enraged Musician" lack a nose,
yet has one in the prints second
state? Did the working conditions or wanton
lifestyle of dustmen make them particularly
prone to wasting leprosy or syphilis?
His gaping black spot (like the black
doggy noses of the villainous Beagle Boys
in old Mickey Mouse comics) in the painted
sketch for the print, then also the first
state of the print, is reworked into a
normal nose in the second. From notes
in the books appendix we see that
John Nichols wondered about the dustmans
noselessness in a 1781 biography of Hogarth,
though in our time Jeremy Barlow does
not. Though the astute scholar doesnt
miss much, sometimes Hogarths meaningful
details are as obvious as the nose in
front of your face.