Tragedy is a spectator sport; it necessitates an audience, both internal and external to the stage or picture plane. We are the external spectator and there are many examples of internal spectators; the chorus in Greek tragedy or the witness figure that Allbertti gave birth to in Italian Renaissance paintings. Wollheim talks comprehensively of the relationship between the two, with particular focus on Manet. The internal spectators provide a bridge, letting us into their world.

The spectator is the character who judges, who sits detached from the central action, able to weigh up the other components, to connect the complex systems of cause and consequence, innocence and guilt. The figure is not totally exempt or detached though, the involvement in decision making is what opens up our ability to feels, to have empathy, it involves us.

Witnesses of pain are particularly vulnerable to becomingly personally engaged. Consider the figure of Midas in Titian’s Flaying of Marsyas. He is the thinker, the philosopher, the melancholic pensive figure who witnesses the suffering. He becomes implicated, and as such so are we.