Discuss how William Hogarth uses art as commentary in Gin Lane.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Hogarth’s Gin Lane exposes the horrors of excessive drinking in eighteenth-century London.
2. The figure of a drunken woman dropping her child dominates the lower center of the print.
3. Hogarth references the deadly consequences of drinking by naming the gin shop “Kilman” and by portraying a cadaverous figure holding a cup and a figure of a hanging man.
4. He also encourages sobriety by depicting the pawn shop where people sell their goods to fund their drinking habit.