The Sleeping Congregation

1736

William Hogarth

This engraving dates back to a small oil sketch by the same title, created in 1728 (if we are to believe the date painted into the sketch itself).  Subsequently reworked and reissued in 1762, Hogarth's treatment of this subject, the torpor caused by a country parson's sermon, foreshadows Thomas Rowlandson's satirical device of bringing together different types of individuals at a ludicrous social occasion. An old, nearsighted preacher delivers his sermon from his pulpit on high.  The hourglass beside him has emptied, illustrating that his sermon has been going on far too long.  From the standpoint of all those slumbering before him it is ironic that his subject from the Bible is, "Come unto me all ye that Labour and are Heavy Laden and I will give you Rest."  Below the preacher sits the clerk whose attention is fixed on nothing resembling the sacred.  The sleeping, attractive girl of his glare has fallen asleep reading the only passage of the Bible that interests her, "Of Matrimony."  The majority of the men asleep in the pews are snoring.  The only members of the congregation that are awake are two aged women whose conical hats give them the appearance of witches.  For a detailed discussion of this print within the religious and popular culture of early-eighteenth-century Britain, see Bern Krysmanski, “Lust in Hogarth’s Sleeping Congregation—Or, How to Waste Time in Post-Puritan England,” Art History 21,3 (1998): 393-408.  In his comprehensive discussion of Hogarth’s career, Ronald Paulson comment how the Sleeping Congregation appears to bear a “curious, almost parodic resemblance” to a painting of the assembled House of Commons produced by his father in-law, Sir James Thornhill (Hogarth, vol. 1, 191-92).

PREVIOUS

NEXT

MOUSE OVER FOR ARTIST’S NAME

CLICK FOR MORE INFO