The first thing you’ll notice about the Museum of London’s ‘Dickens and London’ exhibition is that it Dickens hardly features. Dickens’ novels and journalism describe the scene, but the man himself is largely unseen — one of many artistic figures in the throng of booming Victorian London.
The Spectator’s obituary praised Dickens’ skill in ‘softening the lines of demarcation between the different classes of English Society.’ But he was not alone in this. Robert Dowling’s ‘Breakfasting Out’ is the best example of a trend in Victorian visual art for showing working people rubbing shoulders with the well to-do in everyday life. Several exhibited paintings suggest that some of this class interaction was nefarious or foolhardy — a fascination of Dickens’. A hundred Nancys are dotted around this exhibition making eyes at raffish Steerforths, while hosts of Mrs Jellabys make ill-advised donations.
Of course, Smike and Oliver Twist are also visible but their representation in these paintings is less sentimental than Dickens’ often saccharine portraits.
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