Seeing Hogarth’s Animal Images

Abstract

This chapter asks: How did Hogarth see nonhuman animals? How should we see his animal images? In so doing it reconstructs the five chief ways in which he represented animals, namely, as (1) hybrids; (2) edibles; (3 ) signs of satire; (4) companions; and (5) objects of cruelty. Hogarth tended to picture animals in order to emblematise particular social relationships that he deemed problematic and in need of reform.