ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Wale pictured history, how he conveyed the presence of the past in pictures printed on book pages, and how he used the page format as a new visualization device. It stresses the novelty of his historical designs against the backdrop of the pivotal role all things new had come to play in British arts, especially since the publication of the series of essays, entitled “The Pleasures of the Imagination,” in Joseph Addison's and Richard Steele's Spectator. Wale's intent to leave vivid impressions on viewers' minds appears in his borrowings from grand style history paintings, in his choice of remarkable subjects and unusual events, as well as in his endeavour to suggest movement in his compositions. Hovering between leisure and knowledge, Wale's historical panorama took viewers on a journey through time and offered them the possibility to imagine they stood as eyewitnesses to past events.
