ABSTRACT
Malet's theoretical and practical understanding of experimental drawing under the guidance of Poynter and Legros is brought to bear on the writing of her first novel, Mrs Lorimer, which is significantly subtitled A Sketch in Black and White. Lady Elizabeth Butler, in particular, had lately been the first woman to see a painting of hers, Roll Call which is about the aftermath of the Siege of Sevastopol be awarded the compliment at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1874 of having a rope put before it to keep the crowds back. Michael Fried has described the advent of Modernist painting as a moment which was one of a certain "crossing of borders". Flint argues that the importance of dust to Victorian culture lay in the 'dialectics of its materiality', in the fact that its insidious physical presence also partook of something far more metaphysical. Unarguably, Lucas Malet's 'sketching' technique is highly effective at conveying such heightened moments of inchoate, emerging consciousness.
