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Thursday, July 10, 2014

Never go bald in England........

"The Five Orders of Perriwigs as they were Worn at the Late Coronation Measured Architectomically" by William Hogarth, engraving, 1761.

This is a satire on fashion of the time....and how it was defined by your choice of wig!  Hogarth compares these wigs to the five orders of architechture......mocking the rules of beauty.  He divides the periwigs into five categories that parody the five orders of Palladian architectural rules, the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite and Tuscan. The equivalents William Hogarth fashions are Episcopal (the clergy), Old Peerian or Aldermanic (city officials and peers), Lexonic (lawyers), Composite or Half Natural and 'Queerinthian'. The final category is derived from 'Corinthian' and represents the most ornate and effete.  Genius!

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