Focus on this artwork and discuss the abstract.
Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism is a satirical print by the English artist William Hogarth. It ridicules secular and religious credulity, and lampoons the exaggerated religious "enthusiasm" (excessive emotion, not keenness) of the Methodist movement. The print was originally engraved in 1761, with the title Enthusiasm Delineated, but never published. The original print may have been a response to three essays published by Joshua Reynolds in The Idler in 1759, praising the sublime work of Italian Counter-Reformation artists. It certainly satirized both the English connoisseurs' enthusiasm for old masters and Roger de Piles's Balance de peintres, which was much discussed among art critics in the eighteenth century. However, Hogarth reworked the engraving before publishing it on 15 March 1762 as Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism: A Medley, now laying more stress on Methodist fanaticism and echoing his earlier print, The Sleeping Congregation of 1736, in which an Anglican clergyman's boring sermon puts his congregation to sleep.
enthusiasm Roger de Piles credulity Credulity Joshua Reynolds Methodist The Idler Enthusiasm William Hogarth Counter-Reformation