Art & Creativity Quote by William Hogarth

Hogarth is lobbing a polite grenade at the art world: the more “trained” you are, the less trustworthy your taste becomes. Coming from an artist who made his name skewering London manners and hypocrisy, the line reads less like anti-intellectualism and more like suspicion of professional self-dealing. He’s not praising ignorance; he’s mocking the way expertise can turn into a closed circuit of jargon, fashion, and mutual back-patting.

The subtext is about who gets to decide what counts as good. In Hogarth’s Britain, painting was trying to climb the social ladder from craft to “high” art, with academies, connoisseurs, and imported Old Master worship shaping the conversation. Hogarth, a champion of narrative, moral bite, and legible satire, had little patience for critics who treated a canvas like a password-protected club. When he says the least-studied are the best judges, he’s defending the eye that still reacts like an eye: composition that reads, gesture that lands, storytelling that stings.

The line also flatters the public while warning it. Hogarth built an audience beyond aristocratic patrons, selling prints and courting middle-class viewers. Trust your instincts, he implies - but also notice how easily “education” can become a smokescreen for status. It’s a jab at gatekeeping, and a strategic pitch for an art culture where impact outranks pedigree.