The Analysis of Beauty, Plate 1

Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty was the first treatise on aesthetic theory to take the discussion of the formal values as its central theme. Hogarth defined beauty as "a composed intricacy of form, which leads the eye, and through the eye the mind, a wanton kind of chase." He also discussed the aesthetic of comic art, which results from the expressive and unexpected deviation from ideal form. Both principles are amply demonstrated in his work.

The central scene of a statuary yard incorporates many of the masterpieces of ancient sculpture know in the eighteenth century, including the Farnese Hercules, the Laocoön, the Venus de Medici, and the Apollo Belvedere. The numbers are keyed to passages in The Analysis of Beauty, and the diagrams which ring the print illustrate various principles discussed in the text. At the top center (fig. 26) is a serpentine line twined about a cone, Hogarth's signature "line of beauty."