250px| Defendant and Counsel (1895), by  Yeames, an example of the problem picture, which invites the viewer to speculate on the woman's alleged crime and on whether or not she may be guilty.A problem picture is a genre of art popular in late Victorian painting, 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 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, then at its most popular, but with the text belonging to the illustration omitted.See David Skilton,“The Centrality of Literary Illustration in Victorian Visual Culture: the example of Millais and Trollope from 1860 to 1864.” Journal of Illustration Studies (December 2007). 14 May 2014. URL Walter Sickert, The Camden Town Murder  , originally titled, What Shall We Do for the Rent? or What Shall We Do to Pay the Rent 1908 Some avant garde artists also experimented with the genre, notably Edgar Degas and his follower Walter Sickert. 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 (1908), in which the two figures can be interpreted as a couple, or a killer and his victim.
250px| Defendant and Counsel (1895), by William Frederick Yeames, an example of the problem picture, which invites the viewer to speculate on the woman's alleged crime and on whether or not she may be guilty.A problem picture is a genre of art popular in late Victorian painting, 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 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, then at its most popular, but with the text belonging to the illustration omitted.See David Skilton,“The Centrality of Literary Illustration in Victorian Visual Culture: the example of Millais and Trollope from 1860 to 1864.” Journal of Illustration Studies (December 2007). 14 May 2014. URL The Camden Town Murder by Walter Sickert, 1908 , originally titled, What Shall We Do for the Rent? or What Shall We Do to Pay the Rent Some avant garde artists also experimented with the genre, notably Edgar Degas and his follower Walter Sickert. 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 (1908), in which the two figures can be interpreted as a couple, or a killer and his victim.
A
William Frederick
D
Walter Sickert,
A
by Walter Sickert, 1908
D
1908