Propaganda and Hogarth's Line of Beauty in the First World War

Propaganda and Hogarth’s ‘Line of Beauty’ in the First World War assesses the literal and metaphoricconnotations of movement in William Hogarth’s eighteenth-century theory of a ‘lineof beauty’, and subsequently employs it as a mechanism by which the visualpropaganda of this era can be innovatively explored. Hogarth’s belief thatthis line epitomises not only movement, but movement at its most beautiful,creates conditions of possibility whereby the construct can be elevated fromtraditional analyses and consequently utilised to examine movement in artworksfrom both literal and metaphorical perspectives. Propagandist promotion of an alternate reality as a challengeto a current ‘real’ lends itself tothese dual viewpoints; the early years of the twentieth century sawgrowth in the advertising of conflict via the pictorial poster, instigatingintentionally or otherwise an aesthetic response from soldier-artistsembroiled on the battlefields. The ‘line of beauty’therefore serves as aproductive mechanism by which this era of propaganda art can be appraised.