Victorian narrative painting was the most popular type to dominate the art world of the era. This course will familiarise students with 'reading' the pictures and look in some depth at the work of Wilkie, Frith, Landseer and Maddox Brown.
David Wilkie is the unjustly neglected, founding father of Victorian narrative art, whose psychological penetration and understanding of body language enabled those who followed to construct convincing narrative pictures. His pioneering work was followed by the great animalier, Edwin Landseer, uniquely enlisting the world of animals to his cause; William Powell Frith, creating indispensable social panoramas, and the quirky Pre- Raphaelite associate, Ford Maddox Brown. We will also engage in 'reading' narrative pictures in the Victorian manner using the deductive technique of Sherlock Holmes.