Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 14

Art - Essay Example The social protest was unique to each of their respective countries. David’s Oath of the Horatii looks like a scene out of Roman history. Three young Romans swear allegiance to Rome and their family in this portrait. The crying women represent Horatii women that are either sister to the enemy or engaged to the enemy. The men act on their allegiance alone, while the women listen to their heart. This painting was completed several years before the French Revolution, but the painting was a protest of the politics of the time. Aristocrats were blindly following the French monarchy, but businessmen and the poor were acting on their hearts. Blind loyalty only leads to destruction, just like the soldiers and just like the French monarch. Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress is a series of eight paintings. The titles are The Heir, The Levee, The Orgy, The Arrest, The Marriage, The Gaming House, The Prison, and The Madhouse. Each one of these paintings tells a story about the heir. He takes his inheritance and squanders it away. Eventually the heir ends up in the asylum. The moral of the story is if a man does not work and earn their money it is not as valued. Inherited money is easily squandered. Once the heir was led astray with an abundance of money, his life went downhill due to the vices money can buy. If he would have earned his money, maybe he would not have so easily parted with it. The similarities between David’s Oath of the Horatii and Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress are the presence of classes and a message against the wealthy. A ruling class, lower class, military class, man class, and women class were present in both of these men’s works. While David might not have shown the classes side by side, or only a man and women class, the implied classes were present. Hogarth painted different classes and even contrasted them. For example, the madmen at the asylum and the woman dressed in high fashion showed the contrast