Time Smoking a Picture .

This print, designed as the subscription ticket of Sigismunda, expresses Hogarth's fear of time as a force destructive to art while it combats the general enthusiasm in England for "dark masters" articulated by Addison in the "Spectator Vol: II: Page 83." In that Spectator (No. 83) Addison denigrates modern art as the product of such motives as vanity, avarice and envy while he sees the lifelike work of "those Great Masters that were dead" as impoved and mellowed by time.

In opposition to this view Hogarth draws Time sitting irreverently on a statue he has destroyed. The sculpture looks almost like a human being that has been executed; the noseless head, wearing a pained expression, is detached from its body. The statue's hand, also detached, points to Time's obscuring "Varnish." Time himself views a painting impassively as his scythe destroys its canvas and he obscures its detail with smoke.

The quotation from the comic dramatist Crates translates "Time is not a great artist but weakens all he touches." This quotation has been reworked by Hogarth to serve his own ends; the original reads, "Time has bent me double; and Time, though I confess he is a great artist, weakens all he touches."*

[Excerpt from Engravings by Hogarth, edited by Sean Shesgreen (Dover, 1973).]

*Paulson, Hogarth's Grapic Works, I : 242.