Hypatia's Empty Curricle. Illustration from a 1914 Edition of Charles Kingsley's 1853 Novel Hypatia 1914

Curator: Oh, this piece just drips with narrative tension. It’s Byam Shaw’s illustration "Hypatia's Empty Curricle" created in 1914, based on Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel. Editor: You’re right, there’s something ominous in its starkness. The empty chariot careening through the marketplace has a melancholic kind of drama to it. The horses are practically leaping off the page! Curator: Knowing the story it depicts, that of Hypatia, a philosopher brutally murdered in Alexandria, adds layers of interpretation. Shaw, as a Pre-Raphaelite artist, uses historical themes to comment on societal injustices, the fragility of intellectualism. This work acts almost like an accusatory spotlight on power. Editor: Exactly! The broken sandal in the foreground, discarded, is such an intimate and heartbreaking detail. It's as though her final moments are suspended right there for us to feel the palpable fear in a stolen moment. I can almost feel the ancient stones beneath my bare feet. Curator: Shaw doesn't depict the violence itself, it’s a study in absence, a kind of foreshadowing rendered in incredibly precise ink lines. The market activity provides a bustling yet detached contrast to the implied tragedy. Editor: That bustling almost feels invasive; the mundane going on whilst tragedy is set to occur just outside the frame! And the perspective he employs feels both chaotic and voyeuristic at once! Curator: Right. I think the lack of colour pushes us to confront what’s not seen as actively as what we are presented. It speaks volumes about visibility, privilege, and the forces of erasure operating in historical narratives and how they mirror into our time. Editor: Definitely makes you think, doesn’t it? About the things history forgets and what images linger within memory. Curator: It does, yes. And on how we continue to grapple with whose stories get told. Editor: Art’s capacity to hold memory in its empty spaces really does get me every time.