Homelessness: no laughing matter for Hogarth – nor for us

Centuries after William Hogarth created probably the first image of homelessness in British art in 1736’s Four Times of the Day, the image of people sleeping rough is one that is still all too depressingly familiarIn 1736, an impressario called Jonathan Tyers commissioned William Hogarth to paint four scenes to decorate his pleasure park Vauxhall Gardens, where Londoners, some of them posh and some just wearing posh clothes, listened to music, intrigued and seduced each other in the &ldquo