Cruelty in Perfection
William Hogarth
1750
- Medium
- Woodcut with letterpress in black on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/block: 45.2 × 38.2 cm (17 13/16 × 15 1/16 in.); Sheet: 51.6 × 41.5 cm (20 3/8 × 16 3/8 in.)
- Genre
- woodcut
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
printprints and drawingwoodcut (process)woodcutpaper (fiber product)
About
Hogarth frequently used an episodic format to depict an unsavory character’s descent into debauchery, and the four-print series Four Stages of Cruelty features the artist’s most sadistic villain, Tom Nero. After impregnating a lady’s maid and convincing her to steal from her mistress and run away with him, he murders her. In John Bell’s large-scale woodcut after Hogarth, Nero is apprehended as the dead body of his lover is discovered.
