Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism: One of William Hogarth's last great works of art, Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism explores the ever dangerous world of fundamentalist religion. Presiding from a great height a preacher-performer terrorizes his congregation with a pair of puppets representing the devil and a witch. The text beside him has opened to a page reading, "I speak as a fool." Below, another minister thrusts an icon down the dress of an attractive girl seemingly in the throes of religious ecstasy. Hogarth continues the poignant comparison between religious and sexual excitement to the right of this couple by inventing a religious thermometer containing various emotional states such as, agony, lust, madness and suicide. At the thermometer's base rests a diseased brain.
In the foreground a woman splinters a gin glass while giving birth to rabbits. This was an actual person (a Mrs. Tofts) who made her living by performing such tricks. Above her the church clerk, surrounded by cherubs, embodies the words written on his lectern, "Continually do cry." Behind, the faces of the congregation are convulsed with horror and torment. Over them hangs a threatening chandelier which is titled, "A New and Correct Globe of Hell".
Standing apart from this scene of religious fervor is a bemused, pipe smoking man peering in from the window. Being the only sane individual depicted, he is thus both physically and emotionally removed from this obvious madhouse.
In the foreground a woman splinters a gin glass while giving birth to rabbits. This was an actual person (a Mrs. Tofts) who made her living by performing such tricks. Above her the church clerk, surrounded by cherubs, embodies the words written on his lectern, "Continually do cry." Behind, the faces of the congregation are convulsed with horror and torment. Over them hangs a threatening chandelier which is titled, "A New and Correct Globe of Hell".
Standing apart from this scene of religious fervor is a bemused, pipe smoking man peering in from the window. Being the only sane individual depicted, he is thus both physically and emotionally removed from this obvious madhouse.
