ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two connected senses of expression: the manner in which artists were expected to convey an overall tone to an image, and the communication of an internal state of mind through changes to the form of the face. Within William Hogarth’s oeuvre, the figure of Sigismunda may be seen as the summation of a long-standing interest in historical figures who use hands and facial expressions to lend force to the communication of their predicaments. Hogarth's reputation had been established throughout a long, metropolitan practice in portraiture and in the representation of low-life scenes with a sharply humorous bent. Hogarth’s attention to detail invites us to recognize the heart in the goblet, with its visible veins, as a human organ. Hogarth’s Sigismunda, not only as an image but also as a historical event, highlights some key issues concerning the management and functions of emotional expression in mid-eighteenth-century England.
