ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Scott's historical novels also influenced the nature of historiography which became
more people-based, as noted by Carlyle:
these historical novels have taught all men this truth, which looks like a
truism, yet was unknown to writers of history and others, till so taught:
that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled with living men, not
by the protocols, state papers, controversies and abstractions of men. 26
The historical novel relied heavily on the use of empathy to gain an emotional
response from the reader. 27 In consequence empathy became one of the key
characteristics of the picturesque mode of historiography. Its insistence on the
'practice of empathy as a pathway to historical understanding' seems to have strongly
informed Brown's idea of history and therefore his visual construction of scenes from
the past. 28 Like the historical novel Brown's compositions focus on the human
interaction. They are constructed to draw the viewer into the historical scene by using
their desire to empathise with each character. As Elizabeth Prettejohn remarks Brown
created worlds which were 'startingly strange' and his 'representation of the past [was]
a way of exploring cultural difference. But the fascination with difference coexists
with an equally powerful assertion of the commonalities of human existence.' 29
Brown showed the figures in his scenes behaving as his viewers might, laughing,
flirting and sleeping, and underlined the unchanging nature of the human spirit,
drawing the viewer into the scene in the process.
26 Cited op. cit. at note 1, p. 31.
27 The word empathy was not in contemporary use until the early 1900s but it best describes the
emotional link nineteenth-century writers, historians and artists wished their audience to make with
people from the past.
28 Op. cit. at note 14, p. 15.
29 Elizabeth Prettejohn, ‘Images of the Past in Victorian Painting,’ in Angus Trumble, ed., Love and
Death: Art in the Age of Queen Victoria, exh. cat., Art Gallery of South Wales, Adelaide, 2002, p. 87.
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