Humours of an Election Humours of an Election The Humours of an Election is a series of four oil paintings and later engravings by William Hogarth that illustrate the election of a member of parliament in Oxfordshire in 1754. The oil paintings were created in 1755. The first three paintings, "An Election Entertainment", "Canvassing for Votes" and "The Polling", demonstrate the corruption endemic in parliamentary elections in the 18th century, before the Great Reform Act. The last painting, "Chairing the Member", shows the celebrations of the victorious Tory candidates and their supporters. At this time each constituency elected two MPs, and there was a
Paris in the 18th century a new generation of artists showed their works; François Gérard; Anne-Louis Girodet, a pupil of David, famous for his romantic paintings, particularly a 1797 painting of the prominent actress and courtesan Mademoiselle Lange as Venus; Carle Vernet, the son and father of famous painters; The portrait painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey, who painted all the rulers of France from Marie-Antoinette through Napoleon III; the genre painter Louis-Léopold Boilly; Antoine-Jean Gros, a young history and landscape painter, who soon achieved fame and a government position in 1796 with a heroic portrait of Napoleon at the battle of Arcole; the romantic landscapes of Hubert