The Four Stages of Cruelty is a series of four printed
engravings published by
William Hogarth in 1751. Each print depicts a different stage in the life of the fictional Tom Nero. Beginning with the
torture of a dog as a child in the
First stage of cruelty, Nero progresses to beating his horse as a man in the
Second stage of cruelty, and then to
robbery,
seduction, and
murder in
Cruelty in perfection. Finally, in
The reward of cruelty, he receives what Hogarth warns is the inevitable fate of those who start down the path Nero has followed: his body is taken from the
gallows after his
execution as a murderer and is mutilated by
surgeons in the
anatomical theatre.
The prints were intended as a form of moral instruction; Hogarth was dismayed by the routine acts of cruelty he witnessed on the streets of London. Issued on cheap paper, the prints were destined for the lower classes. The series shows a roughness of execution and a brutality that is untempered by the humorous touches common in Hogarth's other works, but which he felt was necessary to impress his message on the intended audience. Nevertheless, the pictures still carry the wealth of detail and subtle references that are characteristic of Hogarth.
Salvador Dalí was a
Catalan-
Spanish artist who became one of the most important
painters of the twentieth century. A skilled draftsman, he is best known for his
surrealist work identified by its striking, bizarre,
dreamlike images. His
painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of
Renaissance masters. His best known work,
The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. In addition to painting, his artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, photography, and an
Academy Award-nominated short cartoon, "
Destino," on which he collaborated with
Walt Disney; it was released posthumously in 2003. An artist of great imagination, Dalí had an affinity for doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his
eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork.
