The Bench

William Hogarth's engraved narrative scenes are like recorded moments from satirical theatrical performances. He was determined to expose the worst of public behavior and, although he preferred to paint, recognized that printed images produced in multiple could reach and therefore influence many more people than a single painting. In The Bench, Hogarth depicts several disengaged, apathetic jurists of the Court of Common Appeals, including the notoriously corrupt and immoral Lord Chief Justice Sir John Willes, in the foreground. Bothered by what he perceived to be the public perception of him as a caricaturist, Hogarth included below the image a paragraph taken from his treatise, Analysis of Beauty. In it he distinguishes between the honest expression of character and caricature.