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
John Martin (painter) John Martin (painter) John Martin (19 July 1789 – 17 February 1854) was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator. He was celebrated for his typically vast and melodramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes. Martin's paintings, and the engravings made from them, enjoyed great success with the general publicin 1821 Thomas Lawrence referred to him as "the most popular painter of his day"but were lambasted by John Ruskin and other critics. Martin was born in July 1789, in a one-room cottage, at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham in Northumberland, the fourth