Le témoin virtuel dans La Carrière d’une prostituée (1732) La médiatisation des crimes par l’image chez Hogarth

William Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress (1732) used real-life crime to create a six-part fictional story. The sophisticated techniques of visualization prompted the viewer to reflect and react experientially, like a “virtual witness” (Bender, 2012) at a crime scene reconstruction. This essay investigates the evidentiary value of Hogarth’s re-inscriptions, drawing attention to specific production techniques, criminal process and trial accounts. Understood as early visual criminology, Hogarth’s first serial offers an ascendant of modern crime film as relayed through TV serials like CSI and Court TV.