Julia Margaret Cameron Upcoming Exhibition: Arresting Beauty May 30th - September 14th, 2025 The Morgan Library & Museum, NYC

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Call I Follow, I Follow, Let Me Die
1867
Carbon print
35.1cm x 26.7cm
© The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund

Julia Margaret Cameron photograph by Henry Herschel Hay Cameron, 1870 V&A

“I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.” — Julia Margaret Cameron

The following text is from The Morgan Library & Museum website:

Arresting Beauty:  Julia Margaret Cameron explores the path-breaking career of photography's first widely recognized artist. Cameron (1815-1879) was born in Calcutta modern day Kolkata to a French mother and English father, in 1848; with her husband and children, she moved to England where her sisters introduced her to the elite cultural circles in which they traveled. Residing on the Isle of Wight, where she was close neighbors with the poet Alfred Tennyson, Cameron acquired her first camera at age 48. In only eleven years she would create thousands of exposures and leave an enduring image of the Victorian era as an age of intellectual and spiritual ambition.

Cameron's prodigious drive helped her become a probing portraitist of leading writers, artists, and scientists, such as Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, G.F. Watts, and Charles Darwin, while her absorption with fine art, notably Renaissance painting, led her to create staged tableaux in a model that has been perpetually rediscovered by photographers down to the present. Most distinct of all was Cameron's wholly personal handling of her medium. Heedless of contemporary conventions of technique, alert to the happy effects of accident and indifferent to critical scorn, she embraced a style of spontaneous intimacy, that distanced her from the photographic establishment of her time and class. Motion blur, highly selective faces, and even fingerprints on the glass negatives (which required developing before their emulsions dried) are among the idiosyncrasies of her singular oeuvre.

Cameron was quick to exploit publishing and promotional opportunities: at London's South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria & Albert Museum) she secured not only an exhibition in 1865 but, a few years later, studio space, and she was the first photographic artist to be collected by the institution. Arresting Beauty features prints from its initial purchase, and from subsequent additions to its holdings, which have grown to number nearly one thousand. The exhibition includes Cameron's large camera lens (all that survives of her apparatus), pages from her unfinished memoir in manuscript, Annals of My Glass House, and portraits she made in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after Cameron and her husband moved there in 1875.

Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron was created by the V&A - Touring the World

 Arresting Beauty Exhibition   Morgan Library and Museum exhibition link

My Review of Arresting Beauty by Heather Cooper

‘Beggars can’t be choosers. They really can’t.’

Based on true historical events, Arresting Beauty follows the extraordinary story of Mary Ryan, who was found begging on Putney Heath at the age of ten by the celebrated Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Julia takes Mary into her magnificently bohemian household, to be trained as a maid and educated alongside her own sons, before becoming an assistant, muse and model for Julia in many of her pioneering photographs.

When Julia decides to move to Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, to live close to her great friend Alfred Tennyson, Mary—clever and rebellious—finds herself uncomfortably poised between two worlds—that of a servant girl in one, and in another, artistic assistant to Julia and befriending the likes of Tennyson, battling class and attitudes of the time to fulfil her own goals and perhaps even find love.

A sparkling historic romance novel based on a true-life story.

ISBN-13 : 9781913894160 (Hardback), 9781913894153 (Paperback), 9781913894177 (eBook)

Publication Date: September 30th 2023

RRP: £20.00 (Hardback), £10.99 (Paperback), £5.99 (eBook)

Thank you to Beachy Books for my digital review copy.

Julia Margaret Cameron, “Romeo and Juliet,” c. 1867, Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin. 

Posed by sitters Mary Ryan and Henry Cotton

Henry took his leave of Julia and I said I would show him out. When we got to the front door I opened it for him (force of habit) but he suddenly seized my hand and pulled me outside into the dusk and along to the side of the house, away from where anyone could see us, and took me into his arms and began to kiss me,
 long kisses full of sweetness and tenderness and passion, with the scent of the first roses around us and the moon rising over the sea. He certainly had proved an apt pupil. When he finally left me, reluctantly and with many whispered farewells and murmurings of just-one-last-kiss, to walk across the fields back to his hotel, I stayed there in the darkness for a while, while my heart slowed back to normal. 

Fall into the world of artistic bohemia with photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, her husband, her children including newest addition, orphaned, Mary Ryan. On Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, at Julia's home, Dimbola Lodge, we feel the hurried buzz of overfrenzied activity as author, Heather Cooper takes us through Mary Ryan's new life. We see her age over the years, with a naivete juxtaposed against her strong sense of self. She becomes a parlormaid rubbing shoulders with the immortal faces of Thomas Carlyle, Robert Browning and Julia's neighbor, Poet Laureate, Alfred Tennyson. 

Some of my most favorite chapters occurred between a curious young poetry reading Mary Ryan sneaking outdoors of Dimbola Lodge walking to Tennyson's nearby home, Farringford House. Some very sweet scenes of the laureate sitting under a tree talking to himself and as Mary gets closer, she hears a poem soon to be published, Maud!  Tennyson at Little Holland House equally surprised to see Mary Ryan there.   My favorite is the appearance of twelve year old Lionel Tennyson and Mary Ryan climbing up to the attic of Farringford House to see the stars while Tennyson was entertaining William Allingham.  

If you are curious about Mary Ryan's life with photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron and her clan, there are lots of wonderful chapters between the maids: Mary Hillier and Louisa as they get to know Mary Ryan. Heather Cooper very wisely describes the set up of photographs where Mary Ryan became the sitter and all of the home life situations that occur within the walls of Dimbola Lodge. 

This is a love story at heart, though. So, if you came for the romance its here in page turning beauty. From start to finish you will meet a few of MaryRyan's suitors before Henry Cotton sets his eyes on his true love. It is a tender love story told with a realism that could only come from orphaned beggar girl turned housemaid turned photographic sitter and assistant. 

The epilogue was a nice surprise as Heather Cooper provides more information on what happens to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Cotton after they marry leaving the Isle of Wight for India. Here's little hint as Mrs. Cotton becomes Lady Cotton with her children in this gorgeous painting included in Henry Cotton's memoir, India & Home Memories.

To purchase Arresting Beauty, Beachy Books

For more information about the author visit her website, Heather Cooper

My review of Julia Margaret Cameron Arresting Beauty by Lisa Springer, Marta Weiss - Victoria and Albert Museum

 

Description

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) was one of the most innovative and influential photographers in the history of the medium. Though criticized in her own lifetime, her distinctive use of close-up and soft-focus is now considered groundbreaking. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s extensive holdings represent the largest collection of her work anywhere in the world, newly united with treasures from the Royal Photographic Society. Drawing on this unparalleled collection, this book presents an engaging introduction to Cameron’s life and work through more than 100 of her most important photographs. Three sections explore Cameron’s unique artistry and range: from her early experiments in the art of photography, to her pioneering portraits of public figures such as Charles Darwin and Sir John Herschel, to her allegorical compositions and the artistic tableaus she created to illustrate Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Also including pages from the original manuscript of Cameron’s autobiography and insightful explanatory texts, Arresting Beauty tells the story of her pioneering career and lasting legacy in one accessible and beautiful volume.

Contributors

Lisa Springer

Author

Lisa Springer is Curator of Touring Exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Marta Weiss

Author

Marta Weiss is Senior Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is an expert on nineteenth-century photography and has published widely on the subject.

Details:

Publisher:  Thames & Hudson USA

• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 208
• Artwork: 126 illustrations
• Size: 7.1 in x 9.1 in
• Forthcoming: April 4th, 2023
• ISBN-10: 0500480869
• ISBN-13: 9780500480861

julia margaret cameron photographed by

her son, Henry Herschel Hay Cameron, 

albumen print, 1870.

It is with effort that I restrain the overflow of my heart and simply

state that my first lens was given to me by my cherished departed 

daughter and her husband, with the words, 'It may amuse you,

Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.'

The gift from those I loved so tenderly added more and more

impulse to my deeply seated love of the beautiful, and from the first

moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour, and it has become

to me a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigor.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Annals of My Glass House

Inside the pages of, Julia Margaret Cameron Arresting Beauty amongst the pictorial explorations of her life, are a few pages of the original manuscript of Annals of My Glass House written in Julia Margaret Cameron's own hand in 1874 now a part of the RPS - Royal Photographic Society Collection and transferred to the V&A.

I gasped out loud as I turned the pages and saw and read Julia Margaret Cameron's own words, in her handwriting. I felt as if I had stumbled into her bedroom at Dimbola Lodge, her home of Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom. Some curious busybody going through her things all the while knowing its wrong but not being able to tear myself away. Her voice ringing in my ear, her feelings about her albumen prints, her life and loved ones abundantly clear.  This is how it feels to turn the pages of this beautiful book that Lisa Springer and Marta Weiss have so lovingly put together in Arresting Beauty.

Annie, 1864, 

albumen print by julia margaret cameron

The first part of Arresting Beauty is entitled, 'Beauty That Came Before Me' beginning with the first albumen print Julia ever took of sitter, Annie Philpot, a neighbor's daughter. It took several hours to complete and several sweets to get the child to remain still for many hours. Mrs. Cameron remarked, 'I was in a transport of delight. I ran all over the house to search for gifts for the child. I felt as if she entirely had made the picture I printed, toned, fixed and framed it, and presented it to her father the same day.' 

These are the beginning years of photography for Julia Margaret Cameron where she experimented with portraiture by seeking out Old Master paintings from the Italian Renaissance as well as Parthenon Marbles. Julia found beauty all around her whether it be her neighbors down the road or a face captured in a painting before her time. 

Giotto Arena Chapel The Virigin Mary and Elizabeth embrace - Julia Margaret Camerons version, 1864

The seconed part of Arresting Beauty is entitled, 'Poets, Prophets,  Painters and Lovely Maidens.' Julia begins photographing 'her friends and neighbors' around Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, where she lives in  her home, Dimbola Lodge, a nod to her plantations in Ceylon. Julia begins with a grand poet of her day, Alfred Tennyson.  She also photographs astronomer and friend, Sir John Herschel as well as her housemaid, Mary Hillier and model, Emily Peacock.

A Tennyson, 1865, albumen print by julia margaret cameron

'I took another immortal head, that of Alfred Tennyson and the result

was that profile portrait which he himself designates as the "Dirty Monk", states Cameron in Annals.

Tennyson was Cameron's neighbor and a loyal friend. By 1850, when she first came to know him,

he was a widely admired public figure who had been appointed Poet Laureate. Cameron considered

him a hero and created many portraits of him over the years.

Mary by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1873

Mary Hillier one of Julia's housemaids

This portrait of Mary Hillier emphasizes her hair falling in waves over her shoulder,

recalling the flowing hair made famous by Pre-Raphaelite painters like Dante Gabriel Rossetti the decade before. A review of Cameron's photographs in the Intellectual Observer in February 1867 

drew attention to her skilful rendering of hair. 

'Beautiful hair, left free, is one of the most poetic of nature's  productions...very subtle and sympathetic 

are the combinations of light...which defy the efforts of ordinary artists to reproduce.'

The last section of Arresting Beauty is entitled, 'Voice and Memory and Creative Vigor.'  Julia loves storytelling through depicting characters and scenes from literary sources including, Shakespeare, Browning and Tennyson.

Prospero and Miranda, 1865

This was the photograph that allegedly prompted Henry John Stedman Cotton to propose 

to Mary Ryan. Cameron writes in Annals that 'entirely out of the 

Prospero and Miranda picture sprung a marriage which has I hope 

cemented the welfare and wellbeing of a real King Cophetua who in the Miranda saw

the prize which has proved a jewel in that monarch crown.' 

In a legend popularized in verse by Tennyson, Cophetua is a king who falls in love 

with and marries a beggar. 

Browning's Sordello, 1867

Cameron was proud of Ryan and Cotton's cross-class romance and

posed them together on several occasions. Here they play

characters from a narrative poem by Robert Browning, Sordello, published in 1840.

Cameron inscribed a verse on one print, ending with the lines...

'she/Unbound a scar and laid it heavily/Upon him, her neck's warmth and all.'

My absolute favorite part of Arresting Beauty is the last section which includes Idylls of the King and Other Poems, vol. I by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Photographed in its entirety by Julia Margaret Cameron including her own handwritten pages of various sections  of 'Idylls.' 

In 1874, Alfred Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, invited Cameron to make photographic illustrations to Idylls of the King, his series of narrative poems based on the legends of King Arthur. After her large photographs were published as small woodcut copies, Cameron decided to  produce an edition illustrated by original photographic prints accompanied by handwritten extracts from the poems printed in facsimile. She claimed to have made as many as 245 exposures to arrive at the 25 she finally published in two volumes in 1874 and 1875.

My favorite photograph is Merlin and Vivien as depicted by Julia Margaret Cameron 

(sitters:  Agnes Mangles standing with loose hair standing in profile and Charles Hay Cameron (Julia's husband) facing her with shining silvery white long hair).

If you are just interested in studying Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs then Arresting Beauty is a wonderful place to start getting to know the photographer herelf through her work, love and passion for creating beauty. 

Thank you so much to the folks at Thames and Hudson USA for my beautiul review copy.

I will add it to my varied research collection of books.

For more information and to purchase a copy, Thames & Hudson USA

The Lion visits The Dirty Monk: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visits Alfred, Lord Tennyson: 15-18 July 1868

Home of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Farringford House

Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow nicknamed 'The Lion' visited Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson at his home Farringford House on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom during 15-18 July, 1868. He was accompanied by his two sisters, brother-in-law, 3 daughters, son, and daughter-in-law. The Longfellow clan stayed  at the Plumbly's Hotel and then Henry Ribbands' Bonchurch Hotel. 

On Thursday, July 16, 1868, Longfellow walked through the front entrance doors of Farringford House. Upon entering, the walls were lined with pictures including the length of the stairway. At the foot of the stairway was a bust of Dante on a table. Walking through a narrow passage that led to the breakfast room, you then continued on to The Drawing room filled with furniture; armchairs, sofa, desk in front of one oriel window. A small mask of Shakespeare hung  on the wall over the bookshelves. 

Lady Tennyson

wife of Lord Tennyson

Photograph by Oscar Rejlander

Mrs. Tennyson received Longfellow and family in the dining room. He describes Lady Tennyson:

A very lovely and attractive lady, exceedingly delicate looking in health - dressed in black silk deeply trimmed with crape - with a most simple bit of white lace edged with silk gimp falling from the front of her head back, and down to her shoulders - plain black hair tied behind at the neck with a broad black ribbon the ends trimmed with crape.

The Longfellow family had lunch with Alfred and Emily Tennyson. However, Alfred was the last to enter the room. As he passed each member of the Longfellow family, he shook each hand individually eventually making his way to take his seat at the head of the table next to his wife. They dined on mutton they raised themselves.

The following day, there was afternoon tea on the grounds of Farringford House with Longfellow and Tennyson seated next to Mrs. Tennyson. Around twenty women were invited to approach Longfellow to shake hands with him. Mrs. Tennyson held Longfellow's hand at one point thinking he was nervous but he was very agreeable and reportedly enjoyed the day. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron

July, 1868, Isle of Wight, UK

A funny story was reported by Mrs. Tennyson how neighbor to Tennyson, photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron residing within walking distance at her home, Dimbola Lodge, Isle of Wight, heard that Longfellow was visiting Tennyson that July week and came bounding up the road to Farringford House to talk to Alfred about having the American poet sit for her so she could photograph him. Alfred warned I mean told Longfellow that she was a friend and neighbor and he basically had no choice. Needless to say, they visited Dimbola Lodge with Tennyson departing with these words...

Longfellow, you will have to do whatever she tells you. I'll come back soon and see what is left of you!

Below is one surviving stanza of a poem Longfellow wrote to Tennyson.

Wapentake

To Alfred Tennyson 

1873

By Henry Wadsworth Longellow

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;

  Not as a knight, who on the listed field

  Of tourney touched his adversary's shield

  In token of defiance, but in sign

Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,

  In English song; nor will I keep concealed,

  And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed,

  My admiration for thy verse divine.

Not of the howling dervishes of song,

  Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,

  Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!

Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,

  To thee our love and our allegiance,

  For thy allegiance to the poet's art. 

SOURCE

Anne Longfellow Pierce, 'A visit to Farringford,' Boston University Studies in English, (1955) 96-8.

A prayer and a poem by Julia Margaret Cameron - March and July 1871

Julia Margaret Cameron and her daughter Julia Hay Norman

unknown photographer

Julia Margaret Cameron wrote a prayer during her first pregnancy with her daughter, Julia, dated,July 8, 1838. It is entitled, 'Prayer written when I quickened with my first child'. In October, 1871, she  included it in a letter to her son, Hardinge, who was living in Ceylon. This prayer was written on one sheet of paper separated into four leaves by lines across each section.

Prayer written when I quickened with my first child by Julia Margaret Cameron

Most merciful Lord God who in Thy loving kindness dost bestow upon me blessings which I deserve not & in Thy mercy dost spare me punishments which I most justly deserve listen oh listen I beseech thee to the voice of this Thy Servant who would lift up her heart in thanksgiving & pour out her soul in prayer to Thee. With every power of my heart do I thank & praise thee most holy God for the blessed hope and promise of offspring which thou hast granted me. Oh perfect I beseech Thee the great work of creation which Thou hast now quickened with the breath of life my in due time be safely born into the world and may thro Thy care & blessing be preserved to be a comfort to its Parents and thro Thy grace 7 guidance a glory to Thy Church. Preserve me if such by Thy will thro' the pain and peril of Childbirth and spare my life, enabling me thro Thy assistance to perform my duties to Thee, to my best beloved and darling Husband, and to the Child or Children with which Thou mayst bless me. enable me with a firm soul and a steady heart to support the hour of my trial feeling strong in Thy strength and resting firm dependence on the promise that Thou wilt allow no danger to befal me no accident or evil to come near to hurt me which is not ordered in Thy wisdom for my clerical good & that of those most dear to me. And on this hope do I most heavenly Father wholly & entirely set my trust, only beseeching Thee if Thou should'st think fit to remove me from this world to bestow in mercy a double portion of Thy tender care on my poor desolate husband and Motherless Child. For my Husband I more especially entreat Thy protection. In mercy hear the cry of my soul and be unto him a Father and a Friend, a God of love and of Campassion, a Saviour, a Comforter and a Redeemer. Most blessed Lord forsake him neither by night nor by day. take thy watch about his path and about his bed and direct all his ways. Thou alone dost know how fondly dear This my husband is to me, how great is his tenderness, how true is his love. Thou knowest that I have only been too prone to make him my earthly Idol and thus have feared to offend Thee-thou knowest also that his constant tenderness has sweetened every hour of my life & that my only grief has been that his faith is not yet fixed on the Saviour, the Rock of Ages in whom I trust & to whom I make my prayer. Thine eye canst see what no human eye has beheld & my secret sorrow is not hidden from thee. If it be then Thy will that I should die in Childbirth my last prayer is that Thou shouldst grant me in death the blessing I have so earnestly desired in life and enlighten his mind so as to enable him to see more clearly & to believe more fully spiritual things. Grant that in becoming a Parent his heart may be touched with Thy mercies and He may more earnestly seek & desire Thy favour, and when he seeks oh grant in mercy that he may find. Open to him the veil of Thy sanctuary and engrave upon his soul the blessed truths of thy gospel so that the Saviour may become to him his only hope & the Saviour's blood seal him with the seal lof redemption. When he is in affliction and his widowed heart doth mourn for heaviness do Thou send him that peace which this world cannot give-comfort him with Thy love and enable him to fix a steady eye of faith on the hope which is my abiding trust & joy that we may thro' our Saviour's merits be finally reunited in the realms of bliss above-and having implored This thy Heavenly Care and Watchfulness for one who is more dear to me than tongue can tell I would beseech thee to calm my mind and enable me to leave this earthly scene without regret having made my peace with Thee. Now that I have time left me on earth may I endeavour unceasingly to finish the work of my salvation and to prepare my mind simply to believe and that i may believe may I be constant in prayer fervent in spirit serving the Lord. Now whilst I have health may I make the Saviour my friend so that if the dangers of Childbearing are great I may bear them with a quiet soul having made my peace with Thee. And in the hour of death let not my heart be troubled but enable me to enter Eternity with humble faith in that Redeemer who is sufficient to save the greatest of sinners who pout their trust in him. But should I be spared to rise from my bed of sickness and know the fullness of a Mother's joy oh grant that I may live to praise and magnify Thy Holy name for all thy mercies towards me. Grant me the assistance of Thy Spirit in enabling me to watch over the body & soul of my Infant & spare me to be a tender and loving wife to my husband giving us both joyful and contented hearts that we may gratefully receive the blessings of which a Parent's heart must be full. And when possessing the gifts-may we not forget the Giver of all good but so walk in this world as to secure a continuance of thy mercy both here and in the world to come. through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour & Redeemer.

The following poem, Farewell of the Body to the Soul, was written by Julia on March 19, 1871 and included in a letter to her son, Hardinge in Ceylon, on October 19th, 1871.

Farewell of the Body to the Soul by Julia Margaret Cameron

Sweet soul of mine! my closest dearest Friend

Forgive me ere we part all injury done

All warfare now between us has an end

Thy frail companion now his race has run

How oft when soaring with a wish divine

I've dragged thee down, and laid thee in the dust

Tricked with false promise glorious hopes of thine

Dwarfed all thy stature, made thy brightness rust

And thou didst ne'er resent, but oft and oft

In the night watches would'st invoke me still

In accent loud and strong-or sweet and soft

To give thee liberty to have Thy will

How oft in playful combat we would strive

If sweet cajolery would win the race

Now thy pure essence free of me shall live,

We part sweet soul! Smile on my pallid face.

Thou wingst thy flight art thou of me so tired?

Let us be friends at least-oh why that start?

Thou find'st thy freedom oft so much desired

Forgive and love me-flow-distinct-apart

Happy U.S. publication day and review of Julia Margaret Cameron By Herself, Virginia Woolf And Roger Fry

This book reprints Virginia Woolf's witty and moving biographical essay of her great-aunt, and Roger Fry's pioneering study of the photographs published together in 1926 under the title Victorian Photographs of Famous Men and Fair Women. To these are added Julia Margaret Cameron's own auto-biographical fragment, Annals of the Glass House, and her only surviving poem, On a Portrait. They are introduced by Tristram Powell. Tristram Powell is a film-maker and historian of photography.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a central figure of the Bloomsbury Group, is best known for the nonlinear narrative of her novels, and for her feminism.

Roger Fry (1866-1934), painter and critic, was another member of the Bloomsbury Group. He was a leading champion of Post-Impressionism.

Daguerreotype portrait of Julia Margaret Cameron and her daughter, Julia Hay Cameron by Unknown, 1845, National Media Museum

The photographer is unknown but it is possible that the image was made in Calcutta as both mother and daughter were there until January 1845, after which 'Little Julia' returned to England for three years. The case is inscribed by the daughter 'Feb 10th 1845. This for me to keep', and probably at a later date by her mother 'Given to my Julia by her request - her own choice.' Julia Hay Cameron died in childbirth in her early 30s, at which point the portrait appears to have been returned to her mother. (This portrait is now housed at Dimbola Lodge, Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, home of Julia Margaret Cameron. This image is not included in the book. I added it because its beautiful)

At the age of forty-eight, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was given a camera by her daughter when she moved to the Isle of Wight:  'It might amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.' The gift was to begin Mrs.Cameron's short but prolific career as one of photography's first great artists.

Cameron's long exposures and softfocus portraits were criticised by photographers of the time as lacking skill, but these evocative manipulations were in fact early realisations of photography's true poetic potential. Such expressiveness was something more readily understood by the Pre-Raphaelite painters with whom Cameron became associated, and who gave her encouragement.

Her portraits capture some of the most famous intellectuals and artists of the Victorian era, all made to follow Mrs. Cameron's famously exacting direction.

 PRODUCT DETAILS

Julia Margaret Cameron By Herself,Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
128 Pages, 4.5 x 5.75
Formats: Trade Paper
Trade Paper, $16.95 (US $16.95) (CA $22.95)
Publication Date: October 2016
ISBN 9781843681212
Rights: US & CA

Pallas Athene (Oct 2016)

 In a letter to Sir Edward Ryan she says, 'Lastly as to spots, they must, I think remain. I could have them touched out, but I am the only photographer who always issues untouched photographs and artists for this reason, amongst others, value my photographs. So Mr. Watts and Mr. Rossetti and Mr. du Maurier write me above all others'. (Julia Margaret Cameron's letter, pg. 18). 

Dear Reader, if you are in search of first-hand accounts from Mrs. Cameron herself, her family members, closest friends, scholars, and the like then look no further.  For this small booklet is quite intimate and charming.  There are myriads of biographies on photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron's life and work. However, I am so in love with this beautiful yet introspective look beyond the lens into Mrs. Cameron's world in Ceylon and Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight. 

It is as if her closest friends have gathered together all of Mrs. Cameron's surviving writings (Annals of the Glass House), excerpts from her letters to colleagues, family, and friends, as well as critiques of the day written by family members and scholars of photography and history. There is no better research than personal artifacts from the subject. Yes, we have her photographs but there was so much more to the woman behind the standing box camera lens. 

 

 Julia Margaret Cameron with sons Henry Herschel Hay and Charles Hay, 1857-8

by an unknown photographer, Harry Ransom Center

I was shocked when I read the story of Julia's father in his coffin returning home with his widow and young children (including a very young child named Julia Margaret) when his coffin exploded with him in it!  Apparently, James Pattle was something of a liar and a scoundrel with a temper!  There are several fascinating stories about young Julia Margaret Pattle's childhood and family; yes, she was born  a Pattle before marrying Charles Hay Cameron later in life and having her family.  So many wonderful mentions of Mr. Cameron, his viewpoint on living on their coffee plantation in Ceylon, his thoughts on his wife, Julia Margaret, their life together, etc. It is worth the money for learning about that rare aspect of her personal life alone!  

If you want to learn more about the poets and scholars of Freshwater Bay on the magical Isle of Wight, all her friends are gathered within these pages. Focus is put on the famous laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson but deeper exploration into Julia Margaret's earlier friendship with great men such as poet and essayist, Sir Henry Taylor and astronomer, chemist, polymath Sir John Herschel just to name a few!  Wonderful descriptive stories of dinners and parties at her sister Sarah Prinsep's Little Holland House. I could have stayed there forever.  

There are fifty of Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs numbered and labeled as plates. Next to each photograph is a story and anecdote of that particular friend and sitter. However, some wonderful stories of the famous visitors who met Mrs. Cameron and didn't exactly like or get on with her! Very funny tidbits indeed. 

One of my favorite quotes from the book is one I often remember and know to be true even to this day. I should know because I am blessed to have visited Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight and most of my very dear 'friends' remain there...

Everybody is either a genius, or a poet, or a painter or peculiar in some way. 

Is there nobody commonplace?  

 

I am forever grateful to Trafalgar Square Publishing, Independent Publishers Group as well as Pallas Athene for mailing me a beautiful hardcover edition of, Julia Margaret Cameron By Herself, Virginia Woolf and Roger Fry for review. I will cherish it always. 

Now published in the United States and available for purchase, Amazon US

Already published in the United Kingdom and available for purchase, Amazon UK

Review: Julia Margaret Cameron's 'Fancy subjects' by Jeff Rosen

Julia Margaret Cameron's 'Fancy subjects' is the first study of Cameron's allegorical photographs and the first to examine the intellectual connections of this imagery to British culture and politics of the 1860s and 1870s. In these photographs, Cameron depicted passages from classical mythology, the Old and New Testament, and historical and contemporary literature. She costumed her friends, domestic help, and village children in dramatic poses, turning them into goddesses and nymphs, biblical kings and medieval knights; she photographed young women in the style of the Elgin marbles, making sculpture come alive, and re-imagined scenes depicted in the poetry of Byron and Tennyson. 

Cameron chose allegory as her primary artistic device because it allowed her to use popular iconography to convey a latent or secondary meaning. In her photographs, a primary meaning is first conveyed by the title of the image; then, social and political ideas that the artist implanted in the image begin to emerge, contributing to and commenting on the contemporary cultural, religious and political debates of the time. Cameron used the term 'fancy subjects' to embed these moral, intellectual and political narratives in her photographs. This book reconnects her to the prominent minds in her circle who influenced her thinking, including Benjamin Jowett, George Grote and Henry Taylor, and demonstrates her awareness and responsiveness to popular graphic art, including textiles and wall paper, book illustrations and engravings from period folios, cartoons from Punch and line drawings from the Illustrated London News, cabinet photographs and autotype prints.

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Manchester University Press; 1 edition (July 1, 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1784993174
• ISBN-13: 978-1784993177

The historical and the devotional were one to Mrs. Cameron. Thus in her work we find the embodiment of the ideas of Keble and Newman So it was that Mrs. Cameron's treatment of her friends, her servants, her acquaintances, her heroes, and those whom she snatched off the streets like any scout for a model agency had but one aim-to show their divine and superhuman aspect She clearly regarded her photographs as theophanies, manifestations of God in terms of living persons-both indexes and icons of the true, the good, and the beautiful. 

The Five Foolish Virgins by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864 

Albumen print from collodion wet-plate negative

V&A Museum

These two 'fancy subjects' The Five Foolish Virgins and Variant of Too Late! Too Late! are representations of different verses of Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson re-interpreted through the eye of Julia Margaret Cameron. They happen to be two of my favorite images. I can't help but wonder if the image of the foolish virgins was taken inside Mrs. Cameron's 'glass house'? I am looking at the roof above the girls to the left side it looks like glass panes sectioned off by wood possibly. I might be wrong but it would've given them great natural light for photographs. 

(Rejlander/JMC image not included in the book but 

I use it here as a possible example of the roof

of the glass house). 

The Idylls of the Village or The Idols of the Village (1863) 

Oscar Rejlander possible collaboration with Julia Margaret Cameron

Back to the allegory at hand. Mrs. Cameron portrayed the foolish virgins from the biblical Parable of the Ten Virgins which dates back to theologian Augustine of Hippo and became a staple in church sermons across the centuries. Eighteenth century evangelical George Whitfield preached the parable as a way of connecting everyday responsibility with moral obligation. Parable of the Ten Virgins tells the story of how ten virgins are waiting for a bridegroom as part of an Eastern marriage ceremony. It is their job to wait for the groom so they could bring him to the ceremony. However, while waiting for the groom to arrive, every one of the ten virgins falls asleep. He is so late that the sound of his footsteps awakens the virgins who groggily fumble about in the darkness. They try to light their oil lamps but discover they are out of oil. They take off in search of some and by the time they all return, it is too late too late!. For they find the gate locked; the service begins without them. 

Variant of Too Late! Too Late!  {Have we not Heard the Bridegroom is so Sweet}

  by Julia Margaret Cameron,  August 1874, Albumen Print

Estate of Vanessa Bell, 1998

One of my favorite stories in, 'Fancy subjects', is the day Julia Margaret Cameron listened to a sermon of Parable of the Ten Virgins by Anglican priest William Henry Brookfield one Sunday at her local church on Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight. Her dear friend, Anny Thackeray sets the scene:

"Mrs Cameron led her way into the gallery and took up her place in front exactly facing the pulpit. When Mr. Brookfield appeared climbing the pulpit stairs to deliver his sermon, his head was so near us that we could have almost touched it. Mrs. Cameron chose the moment to lean forward and kiss her hand to him repeatedly". 

During his sermon, Brookfield quoted from Tennyson's Guinevere and the song of the Little Novice as an example of a moral dilemma when 'repentance and the real wish for amendment have become impossible, and it becomes 'too late. The door is shut' as it pertains to the Parable of the Ten Virgins.

I have learned to view Mrs. Cameron's albumen prints in a completely different light thanks to author and art historian, Jeff Rosen. Personally, I tend to focus on the straight, non-thematical albumen prints of the friends of Julia Margaret Cameron instead of the allegory behind the photograph. 

One of the terrific highlights of 'Fancy subjects' is the in depth knowledge and research Jeff Rosen has done. He has gone through The Getty Museum's catalogue raisonné  of Cameron's works focusing on her allegorical subjective albumen prints with the aim of providing the reader with a religious, cultural, and historical background. It was wonderful reading the seven chapters of the book some focused on thematic storyline while others focused on poets and their works like Alfred Tennyson and his Idylls of the King being the most famous and recognizable. 

If you are not into allegory specifically, maybe you are curious about the personal life of photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879)? Well, Jeff Rosen includes drawings, sketches and correspondence excerpts from her husband, Charles Hay Cameron. The mysterious and not well known final years of their personal lives (1875-1880) are discussed. Specifically, the travel from Ceylon to Isle of Wight and the career woes of her husband bring some information to view in a different way. You see them more as humanized, a married couple and parents of six children who also run coffee plantations.  

This is a comprehensive and densely written compendium but a must for all photography and poetry lovers.  I hope everyone will read it to enjoy the photographs and the stories behind them.  

Thank you to Oxford University Press in the U.S. for sending me a beautiful hardcover edition review copy that is proudly on my research shelf. 

Julia Margaret Cameron's 'Fancy subjects' is out now in the United Kingdom,  Amazon UK

You can pre-order your copy now, Amazon US