A problem picture is a

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

of art popular in late

Victorian painting Victorian painting refers to the distinctive styles of painting in the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). Victoria's early reign was characterised by rapid industrial development and social and political change, which ...

, characterised by the deliberately ambiguous depiction of a key moment in a narrative that can be interpreted in several different ways, or which portrays an unresolved dilemma. It has some relation to the

problem play The problem play is a form of drama that emerged during the 19th century as part of the wider movement of realism in the arts, especially following the innovations of Henrik Ibsen. It deals with contentious social issues through debates between th ...

. The viewer of the picture is invited to speculate about several different possible explanations of the scene. The genre has much in common with that of

book illustration The illustration of manuscript books was well established in ancient times, and the tradition of the illuminated manuscript thrived in the West until the invention of printing. Other parts of the world had comparable traditions, such as the Persi ...

, then at its most popular, but with the text belonging to the illustration omitted. The genre began to emerge in the second half of the nineteenth century, along with the development of book illustrations that depicted "pregnant" moments in a narrative. One of the earliest problem pictures is

John Everett Millais Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest ...

' ''Trust Me'', which depicts an older man demanding that a young woman hand him a letter she has received. Either character might be uttering the words. The significance and content of the letter is left to the imagination. Their relationship is also unclear; in view of their ages, they might be a married couple, or a father and daughter. Other artists who worked in the genre included

William Frederick Yeames William Frederick Yeames (; 18 December 1835 – 3 May 1918) was a British painter best known for his oil-on-canvas ''"And When Did You Last See Your Father?"'', which depicts the son of a Royalist being questioned by Parliamentarians during t ...

, whose ''"

And when did you last see your father? ''And When Did You Last See Your Father?'' is a 2007 British drama film directed by Anand Tucker. The screenplay by David Nicholls is based on the 1993 memoir of the same title by Blake Morrison. Plot While Blake Morrison, his mother, and ...

"'' became the most famous example of the genre. It depicts a young boy of the

English civil war The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

period being gently interrogated by

Cromwellian Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in History of England, English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 ...

troops who are looking for his Royalist father. It is implied that they are asking a trick question designed to discover his location. The painting is poised at the moment the child is about to answer. Yeames painted many other works of this type, including ''Amy Robsart'' and ''Defendant and Counsel''. When the latter was exhibited a newspaper ran a competition for readers to guess what crime the woman was accused of.Obituary of Yeames
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060822202258/http://www.victorianartinbritain.co.uk/biog/yeames.htm , date=2006-08-22 Some

avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical De ...

artists also experimented with the genre, notably

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

and his follower

Walter Sickert Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...

. Degas's ''Interior'' (1869) depicts an ambiguous scene suggestive of sexual transgression and violence (hence the alternative title of "the Rape"). Similar ambiguity is found in Sickert's ''

The Camden Town Murder ''The Camden Town Murder'' is a title given to a group of four paintings by Walter Sickert painted in 1908. The paintings have specific titles, such as the problem picture ''What Shall We Do for the Rent'' or ''What Shall We Do to Pay the Rent'' ...

'' (1908), in which the two figures can be interpreted as a couple, or a killer and his victim. The genre continued to be popular into the early twentieth century, but was by this time increasingly seen as old fashioned and as over-literary, against the emphasis on pictorial style and form characteristic of

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

and

post-impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

References

Reading

Pamela Fletcher, ''Narrating Modernity: The British Problem Picture, 1895-1914'' (Ashgate, 2003). Painting Visual arts genres English art Iconography