Looking and Being Looked At: Visualizing the Nineteenth-Century Spectator

The graphic representation of English theatre spectators in the long nineteenth century raises interesting questions around what they looked at and how they were looked at themselves. Drawing on Maaike Bleeker’s notion of visuality and Ronald Paulson’s notion of spectators as intermediate states of being, as well as on the subjectivity and tendency toward caricature of artists like Thomas Rowlandson, this essay situates visual depictions of spectators within a context of both visceral and performed responses, while also recognizing the fragmented and temporally limited nature of such depictions. These depictions intersect with an analysis of how Sarah Siddons, the most famous actress of her day, was also represented. Visual representation of theatrical spectators often encompass both a critique and an awareness of the complex nature of social and cultural interactions among spectators, whether engaging with the performance onstage or with one another. While attention has been paid regularly to written accounts of spectators during this period, there has been considerably less focus on the analysis of visual evidence, and the moments in time that such evidence encapsulates. The essay makes the case for the significance of such evidence in exploring a doubled relationship: those of both the reactive and interactive nature of nineteenth-century theatrical spectatorship.