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‘The Eye of the Artist’: Thomas Baines, the Eighth Cape Frontier War, and the Representation of Warfare

Abstract In 1851, the artist and traveller Thomas Baines was employed by Colonel Henry Somerset to sketch ‘the localities and events’ of the Eighth Frontier War. This article explores Baines's experiences during this particularly bloody chapter in the history of South Africa. His views on the war, its causes, course, and combatants—recorded in text and image—reflect his unique position as a settler, soldier, and non-combatant artist, and make him a particularly valuable witness. His experiences help us to understand the events in that conflict: he was confronted with sights and circumstances decidedly uncongenial to the ‘eye of the artist’. But they also assist us in appreciating the development of Baines's own artistic practice and engagement with his surroundings. The article considers the ways in which Baines interpreted the war through his artistic sensibilities, and to what extent practical considerations, his interest in landscape, and his attitudes towards indigenous peoples influenced his representation of the conflict.