Propaganda and Hogarth's 'Line of Beauty' in the First World War assesses the literal and metaphoric connotations of movement in William Hogarth's eighteenth-century theory of a 'line of beauty', and subsequently employs it as a mechanism by which the visual propaganda of this era can be innovatively explored. Hogarth's belief that this line epitomises not only movement, but movement at its most beautiful, creates conditions of possibility whereby the construct can be elevated from traditional analyses and consequently utilised to examine movement in artworks from both literal and metaphorical perspectives. Propagandist promotion of an alternate reality as a challenge to a current 'real' lends itself to these dual viewpoints; the early years of the twentieth century saw growth in the advertising of conflict via the pictorial poster, instigating intentionally or otherwise an aesthetic response from soldier-artists embroiled on the battlefields. The 'line of beauty' therefore serves as a productive mechanism by which this era of propaganda art can be appraised.

This book examines the pictorial representation of women in Great Britain both before and during the First World War. It focuses in particular on imagery related to suffrage movements, recruitment campaigns connected to the war, advertising, and Modernist art movements including Vorticism. This investigation not only considers the image as a whole, but also assesses tropes and constructs as objects contained within, both literal and metaphorical. In this way visual genealogical threads including the female figure as an ideal and William Hogarth's 'line of beauty' are explored, and their legacies assessed and followed through into the twenty-first century. Georgina Williams contributes to debates surrounding the deliberate and inadvertent dismissal of women's roles throughout history, through literature and imagery. This book also considers how absence of a pictorial manifestation of the female form in visual culture can be as important as her presence.

This book examines the pictorial representation of women in Great Britain both before and during the First World War. It focuses in particular on imagery related to suffrage movements, recruitment campaigns connected to the war, advertising, and Modernist art movements including Vorticism. This investigation not only considers the image as a whole, but also assesses tropes and constructs as objects contained within, both literal and metaphorical. In this way visual genealogical threads including the female figure as an ideal and William Hogarth's 'line of beauty' are explored, and their legacies assessed and followed through into the twenty-first century. Georgina Williams contributes to debates surrounding the deliberate and inadvertent dismissal of women's roles throughout history, through literature and imagery. This book also considers how absence of a pictorial manifestation of the female form in visual culture can be as important as her presence.