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Fyfe, P. (2013). Illustrating the Accident: Railways and the Catastrophic Picturesque in The Illustrated London News. Victorian Periodicals Review. Retrieved from http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_eng_faculty_publications-0003
Visual representations of railway accidents in Victorian illustrated newspapers were more than sensational attempts to sell copies. Rather, accident scenes opened a discursive opportunity for observers to arrest and examine the railway's conceptual challenges in mid-career. In the wood-engravings of the Illustrated London News, we see a coherent visual strategy emerging for the purpose. This essay proposes the "catastrophic picturesque" as an important turn in the aesthetic strategies of Victorians coming to terms with modernity. Furthermore, the catastrophic picturesque offers a critical framework for understanding the form and development of illustrated news media, underscoring the mimetic claims of wood engraving and their displacement by photography towards the century's end.
Fyfe, P. (2013). Illustrating the Accident: Railways and the Catastrophic Picturesque in The Illustrated London News. Victorian Periodicals Review. Retrieved from http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_eng_faculty_publications-0003
