William Hogarth, Marriage A-La-Mode: 2, 1743

William Hogarth, an English painter, is known for his '"modern" and 'moral' subjects. Hogarth interned with a goldsmith. Later on his career he started to work with painting. Hogarth was continually claiming that his work was plagiarized and lobbied vociferously for the Copyright Act of 1735 to protect writers and artists.

In Marriage A-La-Mode presents a scene of higher class citizens. There are three hard diagonals. The first starting on the far left side, the corner of the frames down through the man in the blue coat. The second starts at the window down through the man in the red coat. The last one the man on the far right, beginning at his head going through all the way down through his toe.

Hogarth balances the painting with inception paintings (the paintings within the painting) above all of the people on the bottom. Also, the paintings are used as harsh verticals to split the painting in to thirds. The use of the clusters of people adds to this effect. Within the thirds there is a different object on the floor, left: a dog; middle: the handkerchief; and right the family tree. He uses the men on the far sides, on the left the man in the blue coat and on the right the man in the red coat to balance the painting as well.

The man standing facing the window holds blueprints for a building. One could assume that the building is the one that is being built outside the window. The men in the center, are holding money and papers that are talking about the marriage of the woman and the man to the left. The man in the red coat is pointing to the family tree on the floor. Possibly showing that they will be added to the family tree. If you look at the woman she does not look happy to be betrothed. While the man leaning into her looks more than delighted that she is going to be married.