Refined Huguenots leave their church service, the old somber and the young carefree, in stark contrasts to the rough inhabitants of the slum. A dead cat lies between them. A man gropes a woman's breast, and the spilling from her pie dish perhaps reflects the precarious state of her character. A boy cries after breaking his plate, and a girl eats the pie from the ground. In the window of the shop, with a sign of "Good Eating" and the image of the head of St. John the Baptist, a couple argue, as she drops her leg of mutton into the street.
William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Noon (painting, 1736)
William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Noon (engraving, 1738)
No comments:
Post a Comment