Thinking about Elections

PAINTING ELECTION CORRUPTION. I saw a painting of election chicanery a few years ago in an English museum. Wm Hogarth (1697-1764) did a series depicting election corruption. He painted big canvasses, the scale of exalted history paintings, but the figures are up to their ears in every imaginable form of electoral skulduggery.

Do painters today do what Hogarth did? Illustrate the assault on voting rights or Texas re-gerrymandering voting districts to benefit a single political party?

Hogarth’s paintings:

“An Election Entertainment” is a parody of Leonardo's Last Supper. Drunkenness, violence, bribery and deception are all at this appalling political banquet… How would contemporary artists depict the corruption inherent in US campaign finance?

“Canvassing for Votes” shows a sly farmer who is 'allowing' himself to be bribed by two innkeepers… Do artists today illustrate candidates accepting dark money or Musk’s $1 million lottery (now challenged in court) for voter registration?

“The Polling” ridicules the elaborate trickery used to drag the maimed and dying to the polls as lawyers argue about whether a man who has a hook for hand can "properly" swear on the bible…What about today’s trickery that’s used to prevent voting: ex-felons, questioning birthright citizenship, states where a gun permit is a valid voter ID but a student ID is not.

“Chairing the Member” shows the disorder of the earlier paintings turned to violence. (Think of January 6 replacing the peaceful transfer of power.) In the sky Hogarth parodies a famous painting by substituting a big, fat goose for an imperial eagle. The goose's inane cackling, it has been suggested, "will be the new member's contribution to parliamentary debate.”…How would painters today depict the lack of qualifying credentials of many in power positions today, or the gerrymandering that underpins safe seats in elections?

http://www.william-hogarth.de/ElectionSeries.html