The Analysis of Beauty
The infinite complexities of beauty in six principles

William Hogarth was a satirist, a writer and engraver who lampooned the politics and religion of his day through editorial cartoons and grotesque caricatures. In 1753 Hogarth published one of the most thoughtful and extensive aesthetic analyses of formal beauty ever written. In 17 chapters, Hogarth lays out six principles that independently affect the human perception of beauty, and continues to break down compositional techniques, and draftsmanship lessons for the human form, the human face, and depicting action. It’s a complete and profoundly useful guidebook from the theoretical to the practical aspects of visual art.