Pleasing, Emotionally Touching and Convincing: Erskine Nicol’s Painting of Ireland and the Irishin the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This article explores the popularity of Erskine Nicol (1825-1904), a Scottish artist designated as the painter of Irish life. He first painted “humorous” pictures based on anti-Irish caricatures, intended to make his public smile to the detriment of his Irish sitters. He also resorted to artistic codes which had been successfully used by Dutch and Flemish artists and which had been revived by David Wilkie, so that his style was made to please the Victorians. Moreover, Nicol dramatised his pictures such as his famous Notice to Quit (1862), denouncing the helplessness of peasants who were evicted from their land and lodgings by their landlords. The painting was deemed “truthful” because Nicol was seen as a reliable witness who had lived in Ireland and was then likely to have witnessed such scenes, conveying a lot of emotion to the viewer. Thus, his Irish iconography reveals a tension between humour and pathos examined in this analysis.