Univedty of Alberta

"As if 1 Had Wings to Fly": The VictoMn "Cult of Femuiine Beauty". Through the Lens of Julia Marparet Cameron's Pre-Raphaelite Camera

Ji11 Marie MacLachtan O

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulliument of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Edmonton. Albena Fall 1999 National Library Bibliothèque nationale of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services sewices bibliograpfliques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OnawaON K1AON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada

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The author retains ownershp of the t'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiorn it hli la thèse ai des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. AI1 shadows once were jiee; BU?wingless now ore we, And dmedhenceforth tu be In Light's Captivity.

John B. Tabb DEDICATION

This undertalung is dedicated to my grandfather, Peter, whose kindness has touched many, and whose strength and vigow continue to amaze and inspire; to the memory of rny grandmother, Adeline, who filled our hearis, bodies, and minds with courage and cornfort; to my father, who se: our lives to music; and, to rny mother, who numireci my love of language, and who -'gave me such encouragement that 1 felt as if I had wing to fly with." ABSTRACT

This thesis undertakes a feminist examination of the We, works, and representations of nineteenth-century British photographer. Julia Maqaret Cameron. within the context of both Victorian and kte twentieth-century visual and literary culture.

In the fuxt chapter. 1 consider Victorian theories of art and photography. in order to show how Cameron's art photographs inf'luenced, informed, and subvened various aspects of Victorian visual culture. Utilking Joan Riviere's concept of the "womanliness masquerade." 1 then attempt to counter generaly accepted critical and biopphical constructions of Cameron as passive. arnateurish. and "decidedly ferninine." by reading her autobiography. "Annals of My Gkss House." as a highiy self-conscious moment of literary self-production.

In Chapter Two. 1 explore both Cameron's subversive and conservative "views" on Victorian idcologies of gender and class (particuiarly as they penain to the Prc-

Raphaelite Cult of Feminine Beauty). expressed through her fme art photographs of "fair women." and her poem. "On a Portrait."

In the fml chapter. my focus shifts back towards the woman anist henelf, as 1 examine how and why Cameron has ken reprexnted by three twcnticth-ccntury artists:

Virginia Woolf, in her phy. Freshwuter. novelist Lynne TNSS.in her book. Tennyson's

Gifr. and contemporary fh-maker Sandra Goldbacher, in hcr movie, The Governess. This endeavour would not have been possible without the continued love. patience. and support of my parents. Linda and John, my brother. .. Jerry, and my '%osorn" friends and "kindred spirits": Trevor. David, Michelle, Maximiliaan, Deena. Tyler. Dr. T. E. Young. Nola--without you al, my circle could not (and, indeed, will not) ever be complete. for it takes each of you in part to help make me whole.

I am especiaily pteful to my advisor and mentor. Professor Christine Wiesenthal, for her candid advice. professionalûm, thorough criticism and constant encouragement over the pst four years. You too have given me "wings to fly."

1 would ako like to tMProfessor Mary Chapman for her invaluabk assistance in my acadcrnic process; Lhda. Janice. Loretta. Ahon. and The Stationery Shop for giving me technical. einotional. as weU as "java and chocolate" support through it all: Professor Bryan Hinton. for an enijvenuig conversation on the subject of Mn. Cameron: L.J. Skhroff. and the kind, attentive. and enthusiastic stafT at Cameron House. Isle of Wight. not only for pointhg me in the direction of usehl ressources. and for mab.g my visit to Freshwater aii the more rnemorabk. but for the tremendous amount of effort they have put towards the continued pn~rvationof the Me. works. and residence of Julia Margaret Cameron. TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER 1: GETTING FRAMED. GETTING (UN)FOCUSSED: Julia Margaret Cameron andin Victorian Visual Culture ...... 8

CHAPTER 2: ''A DREAM OF FAIR WOMENw:Julia Margaret Cameron('s) Take(s) on the Pre-Raphaelite Cult of Ferninine Beauty ...... 37

CHAPTER 3: 44THELADY VANISHES": 'Mrs." Carneron "Perforrned" on the Twentieth-Centwy Cultural Stage ...... 59

CODA ...... 74

ILLUSTIUTIONS ...... 75

WORKSCITED ...... 91

APPENDIX ...... 99

CURRICULUMVITAE ...... 1O0 LIST OF ILLUSTRATXOXS

\ Figure Page

1 . Lewis Canoll. Julia Margarer Caineron and her Sons. charles and Heny. ca.1858 ...... 75

2 . Henry Herschel Carneron. Portrait of Julia Morgaret Cumeron. 1870 ...... 75

3 . Dante Gabriel Rossetti. ïhe Roselecrf, 1870 ...... 76

4. Julia Margaret Cameron. Pre-RaphaeZiie Stud'. 1870 ...... 76

5 . Julia Margaret Cameron. L 'lncoronora. ca . 1865 ...... 77

6 . Julia Margaret Cameron. neShadow of the Cross. 1865 ...... :.. 77

7 . Julia Margaret Cameron. neAngel in the House. 1871 ...... 78

8. Julia Margaret Cameron. Dora as the BriddMrs . Ewan Corneron. 1869 .... 79

9 . Julia Margaret Cameron. 17re Passion Flawer ut the Gate. 1867 ...... 79

10 . Julia Margaret Cameron. Rebecca. 1870 ...... 80

1 1. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Ecce Ancilla Domine!. 1 850 ...... 81

12 . Julia Margaret Cameron. Pornono. 1872 ...... 82

13. Julia Margaret Cameron. H'path. 1867 ...... 83

14 . Julia Margarct Cameron. Be. Maid ofkhens. 1866/70 ...... 84

15 . Julia Margaret Cameron. nie Angel ai ihe Tomb. 1870 ...... 85 16 . Julia Margaret Cameron. Holy Family. 1864 ...... 85

1 7 . Julia Margaret Cameron. Mouniain Nymph . Sweet Liberv. 1866 ...... 86 18 . Julia Margaret Cameron. neEdo. 1868 ...... 87 20 . Julia Margaret Cameron. Christabel. 1866 ...... 89

2 1. Julia Margaret Cameron. Vivien and Merlin. 1874 ...... 90 i INTRODUCTION

My personal interest in Victorian photography aside. this propct is primarily the end result of my own dissatisfaction with the critical. biographical, and aesthetic constructions of Victorÿin an photoppher. Julia Margaret Cameron, which have appeared in the century that has elapsed since her death in 1879. Mer having conducted my own research into Carneron's life and works. it is my general sense that most contemporary cntical analyses of Cameron have tended to focus their energies on ncuperating the reputation of her photographs from vituperative Victorian reviewers and conciexendhg biographen (panicukrly her photos of women and her Pre-Raphaelite tableaux. which have, untii very recently. still been considered amateurish and not wonhy of serious critical attention): very few have been concemed with atternpting to rescue

Cameron's own reputation from Heimut Gemsheim and other early twentiethsentury critics who have created and cuculated potentially âamaging constructions of her as a bumbling. naive. and decidedly "feminine" amateur.

In the same way that most (re)viewers of Cameron's work have nfused to see her use of sofi focus as conscious and deliberate, and have instead attributed the haziness of her photos to "accident." defective equipment. or poor eyesight. many recent critics have deerned any potentially subversive stnins appearing in either Cameron's life or her art as

"unintentional."' Other extant studies of Cameron have "overlooked" any incongruencies

' Accding to GchdJoscph. "[ilt has ken suggsied by Cdin Ford that Juiia Marpret Camrm's addictiori to blumd fms has its own sairre in an 'intimiiiy of vision' thal rnarkpd several dber childl~n"(47). or potentially transgressive strains aitogether. in order to enforce a readinp of both the woman and her photographs as unproblematicaliy "conservative."'

This has particularly ken the case in discussions of Cameron's approach to Victorian gender ideology (again. in her life as weîl as in her art)--the most recent king Carol

Mavor's critique of Cameron's "Madonna" photos. in her book Pleusures Taken. Overall.

Mavor 's analysjs provides a sensitive. broad-rang hg, and extremely compehg reading of

Cameron's "Madonna" studies. But while Mavor's work is pariicularly successful in its argument for the su bvenive potential of the technique and uyk of Cameron's photopphy. it tends to negate Cameron's active agency in the creative process. Even as she points out that ''one must not overlook the fact that women and other 'naives' have ken historicaily nad as more unconscious of what they are up to" (137). Mavor hesitates to see the tanspressive elements of Cameron's Me as the result of deliberate effort.

Instead. she forcefuly assens (not once. but twice) that Cameron was "not (necessarily] consciously crit iquing its [ fernininity 's image" (47). before compktely withdrawing from what she cak the "extremely tinsorne" and "unanswerabk" debates over artistic intentionality that. to her mind. only "detract from the fmished work" (137). Obviously.

Mavor is not the fmt critic to fnd the act of literary excavation "extremely tiresome," noi to mention ovenvhelmingly hstrating. The question of "intention" is one that has

' ûw ruch critic is Mike Weaver. a pmiific histaian dpbuopphy. whosc W Julia Murgars Camcron 1815- 1879 is still me d the few tcxts tbat consider the Viaaian pfidographer and hct work in any Fat dctail. At first glaacc. Weaver's biograpby of'Cameroa seexns quite alcbratory. Setting himself apart from th- critics 'Who aim to rob ber of ber dignity as a wunan and arcist," be mites that "Julia Margarct Canwroo entend the wdd cf îhe Royal Academy and Salai painters wiib caafidencc" and "tbem was norbing pscudonyman abtut Julia Margimt Camrun." He even rrf'en to Camm as a "piamr ~ssid"bclmging to "îhaî great glrneratioa ofvictorian novclisis . .. wbich included the Brcmtes anà Gr- Eliot." and suggrsts bat "if it mm na so unfashionablc. bel waild have calleà [ber] a @us." Yct. aftcr al1 bis praise far ber @us aad surngih â character. Weaver's pidingly over-simplified final mwssment is tbat 'Ta al1 ber abundance dencrgy." Camem was mast definitely "a ferninine derthan a feminist artist" (14). ït is tbis desirp to unâermine tbc subvenive strains in Cameron's life and art tbat my awn work sccks to intemgaie and ovcmm. pkgued generat ions of crit ics. academics. and historians dealing with long-dead su bject s: even with the aid of pnvate Aiary entries and "eye-witness accounts" provided by close finds and confdantes, we can never know for certain what Julia Margaret Carneron's exact intentions were. as a woman or as an artist. However, contrary to the ôeliefs of

Modemist critics (who completely disavowed the role of the author's subjectivity or a workoshistorical context in the construction of a text's meaning. in order to enforce a neat. monolithic New Critical way of readmg and "howing" literature), as Annabel

Patterson points out in her own discussion of "intention" in Critical Tenns for Literury

Study. "to elirninate probkms is not to solve them" (144). Cenainly. those previous critics and biographers of Cameron who deemed her an "incompetent." or an "unskilled amateur" did not alow the same son of factual incertitude stop them from kkhgeither the woman or her work defmitively "ferninine." Why should we withhold any politicised nading of Cameron's Me and art that may. potentialy, recuperate even "one grain" of integrity to both?

Considering the very recent date of Mavor's work. 1 fmd it a surprisingly negligent move on her pan (both as a kte twentieth-centuryfeminist. as weii as a Victorionisf) to remove herself from the "intention" debate altopther. For, Mavor must certainly be aware of the work that faces contemporary academics: not only in the way of recuperating and re-(e)valu(at)ing the lives and works of women axtists who have for too long been neglected by ptriarchal canons of an and culture. but ahthe worki and lives of the

Victorians. who. as pointed out by Isobel Armstrong in Victorian Poeny: Poetry, Poetics. und Politics, are in dire need of monsideration followmg the Modernist movcmcnt 's

In Chapter Two. 1 will retum to a discussion of femininity and representation, as 1 explore Cameron's paradoxical role in the subversion and perpetuation of the Victorian ideology of ideal fernininity. and most particukrly, of the theories and practices of gender representation favored by the Pre-Raphaelite "Cult of Feminine Beauty." through an examination of her art photopphs of "Fair Women." and her poem. "On a Portrait." In order to contextualize my arguments properly. 1 will examhe these texts alongside exemplary paintings by Pre-Raphaelite Brother. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and poetry by

Christina Rossetti and Eluabeth Siddal. the most prominent Pre-Raphaelite women.

1 will then regard Cameron as product. rather than producer. of iiterary and pictorial culture in Chapter Three. as I examine early and late twentieth-century npresentations of the eccentric Victorian art photographer in Virginia Woolf's play.

Freshwuter (1 923/3S). Lynne Truss's novel. Tennyson's Gifr (1996). and. most recently.

Sandra Goldbacher's fh. The Governess (1998). My analysis here draws upon Isobel

Armstrong's recent work in Victorian Poeny: Poetry. Poetics. and Politics. and Elisakth

Bronfen's concept of "representational vioknce." My goal in this chapter wP be not only to assess the damage accrued upon Carneron's image by Modemût attacks on the

"eccentric" Victorian photographer. but also to explore Cameron's own paradoxical participation in the "representational violence" that would later corne to anüci her pst- mortem mernory in the late twentieth century. *

Whik it is my primary objective to underscore the probkms inherent m the tendencies of critics to overlook Carneron's active agency and the transpssive views expressed through heer Lived life, as well as through her art. 1 do not wish to place my own

work completely at odds with the work of all other Cameron cntics. This thesis is not so

much a reaction against. as an extension or elaboraiion of, several prominent analyses of

Cameron's Me and an: therefore. it is at this moment that 1 wouid iike to express my

indebtedness to those critics whose own writing and research infiuenced my own process

of thinking about Cameron. and, in rnany ways. provided the foundation upon whjch my

own work has been built.

The two critics who have most obviously infonned this undenaking are Deborah

Cherry and Carol Mavor, for both were the fmt to use the term "masquerade" when

discussing Cameron. Although Cherry and Mavor use the term "masquerade" to describe.

vcry briefly and some what ambiguously. the tableour- vivants style of Cameron 's

photographs, or. in the case of Mavor, to refer merely to Cameron's highly dramat ic

penonality, their evocation of the concept undoubtedly contributed to the more extensive

reading of Cameron as a "social pedormer" in a "womanliness masquerade." that 1 have

presented here.

My work on Cameron has also been strongly informed by Victoria C. Olsen's

essay, "IdyUs of Real Life." Although 1 disagree with Olsen's hesitancy to read

Cameron's work as "feminist," her introductory assessment of Cameron's "Idyiis"

photographs is very much in line with my own sense of Cameron's other photopphs of

"Fair Wornen," not to mention her own life; 1 too sec Cameron's life and art "as both xflecting and transforming es~ntializcdVictorian gender and chss identities [as] she constnict[ed] paradoxical 'idylls of mil He' that blur categories and distinctions" (371). I am also pteful to Pamela Gerrish NUM and Jan Marsh. They were the first to draw a paralle1 between Cameron and other more prominent Re-Raphaelite "Sisters." like

Christina Rossetti and Elizabeth SiddaL who also in some ways confonned to. and. m other ways, subverted Pre-Rapbaelite theories of artistic production and gender representation. My analysis of Cameron's poetry in relation to representative poetical works by Rossetti and Siddal will. 1 hope. contribute to the campaign staned by Gekh

NUMand Marsh in their book, Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelitc Movement, to position Cameron (and indeed the other Pre-Raphaelite women) in a more prominent piace in canons of literature. as well as visual art and photography. *

Like Julia Margaret Cameron's poem. "On a Ponrat" (Appendix). this project is a cail to hiture critics. historians. and academics to "tune thy songis] right and peint rare harmonies" where Cameron's Me and art are concemed. And, like Cameron herself, 1 hope to capture on paper an image of the famous woman photoppher (complete wth her inner as well as outer "complexion") that readers will fmd more "st~linglyahe and surprisingly real" than previous portraits of Cameron have tended to k. GETTING FRAMED, GETTJNG (UN)FOCUSSED: Julia Margaret Cameron andlin Victorian Visual Culture

[Il believe in other than mre conventional topopphic photography -- rnap-making and skekton rendering of feature and fonn without the roundness and fulness [sic] of force and feature. that modelling of flesh and limb. which the focus 1 use only can give. tho' calbd and condemned as "out of focus." What is focus -- and who has a nght to say what focus is the legitimate focus?

Julia Murguret Cameron. (qtd in Smith. New Ferninisr Discourse. 248).

Julia Margaret Cameron. the woman whom twent ieth-century crit ics would corne to cdthe peatest pictorial photoppher of the nineteenth century. was twenty-four when. in 1839, Jacques Louis Daguerre made public his discovery of the process of photography in At this tirne. Cameron was stiil living in her native lndia and so may have remained somewhat distanced from the great social disru ption that rocked

Europe and Britain as philosophers. social critics. and lay people ake contemplated the potent id impact of daguerrotypy.' But. however geographicaUy removed Cameron rnay have been from Britah's cultural centres ar the tirne of the unveiling of photographie teclmology. it is highly untikely that she was not aware of. if not actively participatine in. any numkr of parlour-room debates taking place in Anglo-Indian high socieiy circks rcgarding the proposed impact of the new mechanical eye. Afier ail. she was the refmed.

Hrlmut ûcmsbcim and Mih Wtavcr bah fer to Camerai as atensibly '?bc palesi pictcxial pbaogapher" of the Viciaian agt. ' Lindsay Smith. a pruminent sorial bistorian of'lbc niorteenth œntury, whase own work has taken as ils fms the aigins adcffccts of wbat sbc cails a culturd "obscssicm with tbe visuaï' during the ~ignd Queen Victoria, gœs so far as to suggrst that. af a brdrane of optical ai& and devices to have their advent in the nineteenth ccntury (such as the stcmascqx. the microscope. adiorama). it is 'ïhe inwnticm of the camera and the prblic announcemeni ddapemypy in Paris in 1839 tbat "si@led an unprecedentcd disturbance in a wide range of ~Ulnil'aiinvestmrnts in the visual" for the Victorians (3). well-educated daughter of an afnuent Anglo-Indian mag istrate and a wealt hy aristocrat.

and the young wife of Charles Hay Cameron. a philosopher and member of the Law

Commission of the Supreme Council of India. Moreover, as the flurry of articles and

ktten circuiating in the popular press of the &y can attest. photography was a widely

debated and often heatedly contested practice in the nineteenth century. and its influence

(for better or worçe) reached into vinually every eschelon of European and British

societies.

That the memben of various British artistic coteries regarded the photogenic

process with a great deal of skepticism. resentment. and in some instances. fear. is not

surprising. considering the suggestions king made by many of photopphy's crcaton and

promoters du~gthe fmt few years foUowing photography 's public unveiling: namely.

that not only would the camera's abilities soon surpass those of the artist. but that even the untutored amateur could soon capture nature in greater detail than even the most highly skilled painter trained at the Royal Academy in the techniques of realist portraiture.

In France. for example, shonly after the introduction daguerrotypy. one rather ciramat ic anonymous newspaper article reiterated a growing concem harboured by many artists about their rok within an increasingly industrialized society. as well as the fùnction of the beaux-arts in an age that revered the mechanicaly nproduced image. by supgesting that

''thanks to [the carnera] one wiü see vanishing at the same stroke landscapists. ponraitists. ornamental painters and ail other artists" (qtd in Scharf 8).

In order to assuage such fears that the carnera--with its abilities to faitffilly rcproduce in a pure. objective manner "the sufice of objects. the frittend crumbiyness [sic] of Stone, the crisp Wesof tree-bark (qtd in Scharf 8)--threatened to supplant the

Victorian artist who strove for a similar exactitude in his or her realist art. many mists and critics of the period were careful to assert photopphy's role and place as antithetical and inferior to art. Being a machine with pars that required its operaton to possess at least a basic lcnowledge of elementary chemistry. the camera was thought to be more closely aligned with science. and, as such. more suited for empirical endeavours than for accessing and capturing the realm of the ideal.' Funher. as prominent Victorian art critic John

Ruskin pointed out. whik photos could mon carefuily capture textures and fme details. there were some areas in which the human artist was superior: in particular. colour.

Photopphic technology was such that the carnera could still not reproduce the rich. vibrant coloun of the "punst. most innocent. and most precious" things. Asking readen of his 1 856 book Modern Pointers IV to "[~Jonsiderfor a little while what son of a world it would be if all flowen were grey. al1 leaves bkck, and the sky brown." Ruskin made a forcehl point that. at kast for the moment. there were some areas in which human creation could stiil not be surpassed by photographk machinery (qtd in Smith 1 ).

Although the generally accepted appel for a fmished photograph was a "picture." it was the consensus amoungst many axtists and photographes ake that. unlike a painting. which was "made" through the organic process of artistic creation. a photograph was a precxistinp picture of reality that was metely "taken" fiom "red He" and nproduced in permanent form on a mctal or glass plate. and later. ont0 pper. Most critics on ôoth sides of the photographie &bates concumd that the photographer had no hand at al in the

Tbe terms "idcal" and "mai" aw Camem's m. uscd to articulate the separate sphe~sof art and realism. It is nd to bc confùsed with Lacan's sense of the "mal." for example. creation of a picture--th. in fact. photography was a process whereby nature could now be "self-Wted by . . . rectilineal pencils of light" (qtd m Smith. "ldylls of Real Lif'e."

372). Thus, while a pamting was often the result of an idea sparked in an artist's mind. or the extemal manifestation of an origeiary impression of a natural scene upon an individual subpctivit y. it was considered undesirable. if not impossible. that the photographen ' ptrsonalities. emotions, or individualhies would ever corne to &rude into the final result of a piciure taken through the camera's "objective" eye in the way that an artist's work exhibited its creator's mark of individual style.

Most practitioners of photography held tenaciously to the rules and standards of realism king placed upon the function. technique. and styk of photo-taking by the burgeoning photographic societies. and sought to uphold a careful division of the anistic fkom the photographic. However. as Piem Bourdieu has ûiscovered in his work on the social history of photography in Western culture.

alongside the great mass of usen of photography there existed a srnail group of photographers who. either by choice or by professional obligation . . . wish[ed] to subven mamitream photographic practice [of the Realist school]. technicaliy exploit the ordlliary representation of photographic ob&ctivty. or. on the contrary. attempt to load a "rcalistic" fipuration with a symboiic content [in order] to break with the canons of the ppular aesthetic and gant photography a recognized place in the system of the fme ans . . . (102).

With her aspirations to "ennoble Photography and secure for it the character and uses of

High Art by combining the Real and the Ideal and sacrifcing nothing of Truth by aii possible devotion to Poetry and [Bleauty" (qtd in Lukitsh 19). Julia Margaret Camron occupkd a central place within one such emergent avant-garde group. This wup, known as the "pictoriaiist" or "fine-an" photographers, consisted mostly of middle- to upper-class men. some of them artists trained in the study of painting but amateurs in the practice of photopphy. who deliberately reacted apinst society's adarnant separation of the two realms of "objective" Real photography and "subjective" Ideal art. In precisely the marner outlined by Bourdieu. Cameron and her male contempomies hoped to distinguish thernselves from the hacks, amateurs. and commercial photographers of the

&y by combining the various stybtic and formalistic elements of both "ideal" art and

'teal" photography into a new. subversive form of fme-art photopphy.

Like Henry Peach Robinson. O.G. Rejlander. and other members of the buqeoning group of experirnental an photographes. Julia Margaret Cameron sought inspiration for the artistic portion of her photos from a variety of famous paintings.

Carneron's early works. for example, bear the influence of such Old Master painten in the

Italian school of art as Giotto, Luini. Leonardo da Vinci. and Titian. whiie her creative use of lighting haî been ofien cornpared to the "Rembrandt effect" in painting. SUnilarly. her use of sofi-focus to create a hazy. ofien aura-like quality around her subjects has ken kened to the painting technique known as sfumuto (Howard).

While she calkd her early pictures 'bRaphaelesque." rnany of her photos bear the influence of Pre-Raphaelitism in both style and content. which is not surprising. since she was closely associated with several prominent figures working within the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood: the Burne-Joneses, William Holman-Hunt. and the Rossettis were all muent vistors to the Cameron estate on the Isle of Wight.

Like Cameron. the PnRaphaelRes were dedicatcd to making a radical break from the Royal Academy's artistk tradition. whik still satine the public apptite for exactitude by combining the teachings of Ruskin's ''tuuth in nature" principles of Realist painting with allegorical or symboiic content. Pre-Raphaelite painter George Frederick Watts was

Cameron's particularly close friend and mentor. who not only had a sipifkant impact on

Cameron's emerging aesthetic. but who in ktlater ernukted Cameron's own "hazy'' style in his attempts to transfonn the genre of painted ponraiture. In one hter to Cameron,

Watts remarked upon the fitesbetween her style of photo-taking and his painterly technique: "1 cm well appreciate what is noblest in your art. and your last photopphs harmonise well with the effect 1 wish to produce." Simüarly. on the mount of a photographic portrait of Fiorence Fisher taken by Cameron he expressed his "wish that 1 could have painted such a picture as this" (qtd in Hinton 44).

For the most pan. Cameron reccived a great deal of suppon for her work. especiaiiy fiom the coterie of mists and philosophen that gathered at her Isle of Wight home. But whiie mists W

Robinson. "pre-eminently the an of defntion" (qtd in Mavor 64). As such. work iike

Carneron's. seen exhibithg anything other than clear, defined, crisp rcsolution, and thus. deviat in$ 6rom dominant photographic standard, was deemed technically imperfect . One critic writing for the Brirish jour^/ of Photogruphy cnticized both Cameron's art. and a fellow cntic who attempted to hdmerit in her use of "soft" focus:

The art critic of the Athe~ewnm a recent notice of certain photopphk portraits by Mn. Cameron indulges in some observations. which seeing the quarter whence they corn, are highly complementary to the lady: but we think they will be received with a smik of increduiity by photopphers generally. If the critic in question biew anything practically of photography he would not surely insinuate that photographs ought to be "out of focus" in order to be effective (qtd in Lukitsh 43).

SYnikrly, an article appearing in the Photogrophic JUWMI in 1868 exemplifies the ways in which male critics deployed theY cultural authority, not only to regulate and uphold the aesthetic and stylistic integrity of the photographic an from the bumbiing amateur, but to berate wornen's work in order to uphold a tradition of male anistic production, while blocking female participation in the "masculine" art world: "Mn. Cameron exhibits her series of out-of-focus [photos]. . . . We must give this lady credit for daring onginality. but at the expense of al1 other photographic qualities [ . . . .] [we are sony to have to speak thus severdy on the works of a lady, but we feel compelled to do so in the name of an" (qtd in Gemsheim 28).

Lewis CarroU. a some-tirne fkiend and colkague of Cameron's. expressed a sVnikr sentiment in a personal journal entry. wherein he spoke of a secret desire to "do over"

Carneron's "shoddy" photographs: "In the evening Mm. Cameron and 1 had a mutuai exhibition of photographs. [Slome are very pictunsque--=me merely hideous--however. she talks of them as if they were triumphs of an. She wished she could have had some of my subjccts to do out of focus--and 1 expressed an analogous wûh with regards to some of her subjccts" (qtd in Mavor 63). While hardly surprising, responses such as those expressed by Carroll. or those appearing in the photogaphic pumals of the &y, are nevertheless idonnative: for they not only illuminate the potentially subversive nature of Carneron's fine-art photopphy within the context of Victorian visual culture. but they reveal that. as a fernate artist, Julia

Margaret Cameron was, in and of herself, also a site of cuhural anxiety in the nineteenth century. Indeed. at a the when, according to Griselda Pollock. "the role ascribed to the feminine position" was carcfblly limited by the Victorian ideology of divided spheres to

"art's object. the model. or its muse by virtue of a rornantic Sitionwith the artist" (96).

Julia Margaret Cameron sought for herself a reputation as one of an photography's top producers. As a woman armed with the new technology of the machine (a technology associated with industry, progress. and culture. domains which. in the nineteenth century. were considend the places of men). Cameron seriously threatened to transgress Victorian codes of bourgeois nspectability and ideal femininity by her desire to gain for herself the kind of prestige and fmcial reward enjoyed by Briiain's most famous illustrator. Gustave

Dore. and even the nation's Poet Laureate. Alfred Lord ~enn~son.~

Yet. whik cntics keCarroll were undeniably harsh and condescendhg towards both the wornan and her work. Cameron seems to have avoided the social stigmatization which folowed rnany other women iike her. who. in their "rnanly" ambitions to expand or de@ the place and rok ascribed to them as virtuous angels. wives. and motherr. were claimed to have "unsex'à" themseives. On the contrary. the cntics' continual rcference to

In a Ictter Carmrop wme arcund the tiw ofher dlahtiaawith Te~mycmm an illustralcd volume dbis patry (1874). shc expresscd ber desire ta gain "aiw single grain of tbc mcnncntais maintain hcap of prOrits the pœtical part of the work bringr into Alfred" (qtd in Gcmbeim 46). In andber lcttcr to Henchcl: "Da6 ga a fortune for his drawn faacy illustrations ofthese Idyils. Now . .. my large phcitopph. the aie fainstance illustrating Elaine. who is May Rinsep . .. at ber very best wadd [ccrtainly] excite more scnsatioa aad intemst ban al1 the drawingr cf M"(qtd in Gernsheim 59). Cameron as the "lady" and "Mrs." Cameron would seem to suggest that most men found

Cameron to be the image of Victorian wornanliness and respectability.

How is it. then. that despite her deciarations to Herschel and other male confidantes that she deliberutely sought to deQ convention as a fine art photoppher.

Julia Margaret Cameron was. for the most part. able to occupy those spaces of woman and artist sirnultaneously? Why was Cameron aiiowed and even encourapd by her husband and many prominent male anists and contemporaries such as G. F. Watts. to pursue her study of an photography? How is it that she appears to have avoided the social stigrnatization surrounding the professional female artist in the nineteenth century?

In her analysis of Cameron's Me and work in Pleasures Taken: Perfonnunces of

Sexw lity and Loss in Victoriun Photog raph. Carol Mavor suggest s t hat "[Cameron] greaily reduced the risk of comprornising her 'femvWiity"' becaux she was "in many ways. the traditional bourgeois Victorian woman . . . [giving] bhth to six children," before taking up photography as a hobby. "after her children were grown. at the age of fony- eight" (45). Indeed. due to the rektively "kte" age at which she cornrnenced her study and practice of photography. and dut to her &ed status. Cameron avoided the kind of risk to her social reputation that faced a young. unmarried woman in the nineteenth ccntury who had not yet fulfied her expected ferninine funct ion as wife and mother.'

Whik quite persuasive, such a description proves inadequate (as Mavor henelf appears ta recognize) m completely "capturing" a wornan whose lifk. as whose an,was so

h musc bc hirtbcr nard ibat. aitbcugô Camema was vey mucb the luvinp invdved maher-nu dyto her w six childrrn. but to several adopcd girls-shc was also a w

Mavor. of a "traditio~1bourgeois woman," but. rather. of a woman who "piayed the game of lifc with vivid courage and disregard for ordnary ruks" (qtd in Hinton 33).

Even in her younger days in India. Julia Margaret Cameron (née Pattle) and her sisten were considered quite exceptional. According to one contemporaiy. Anglo-Indian

Society was divided into "men. women. and Pattles." While her two older sisters were known for their bcauty and charm. Julia (being the plainest and apparently least visuaily pleasing of the girls). was most admirrd for her intelligence and wit. Despite. or. as Sir

Henry Taylor offend. because of the place of prominence which she was called upon to hold as both the wife of Charles Hay Cameron and. in the absence of the Governor-

General's wife. as the unofficial head of European society in India. she was said to have felt in her later Life a clear "distaste for aii cold and forma1 conventions. in particukr the excessive fom which they tend[ed] to take in Anglo-Indian society" (Gemsheim 13). and a surprishg amount of "contempt for the ways of the worlâ" (Woolf 15).

To those more conservative visiton at the house the Camerons later occupied in

Enghnd at Putney. and, after 1860, on the lsle of Wight at Dimbok, Carncron's mistance to propriety and stin Victorian social mores were most apjwent. both in the management of her household (or hck thereof'). and in the unrestrained marner in which she was observed to dms. speak. and "act." in the presence of rnaids-of-all-work and pet hureates alike. Lady Ritchie. daughter of eminent Victorian novelist. W.M. Thackeray.

and a Me-long niend of Mn. Cameron. was a particularly keen observer who took it upon

herself during a visit to Dimboia to kt in her dhy--with a kind of interested horror-al1 of

Julia's less than lady-ke attributes:

1 remember a strange apparition in a flowing nd velvet dress. ahhough it was summer the. cordially welcorning us to a fine house and some belated meal. when the attendant butler was addressed by her as 'Man.' and was ordered to do many things for Our benefit . . . . When we left. she came with us bareheaded. with traiiing draperies. pan of the way to the station. as her kind habit was (qtd in Gemsheim 14- 15).

Cameron was not only in the habit of walking about. body uncorsetted. draped in

colomil Indian shawls, haû "falhg any way but the right way." but often went about

in the Victorian worid of white lawn with ciothes, hands. and face "stained with chernicals from the photography (and smeiiing of them too)" (qtd in Hinton 35). On occasion. she was even obscrved "taking her cup of tea with her to the station. and

stirring it on the way" (qtd in Gernsheim 15).

Accordhg to her mat-niece. Virginia Woolf. Cameron's rather unrestrained appearance provided a perfect extemal comktive to her merof speaking: for. in the words of Woolf, "so odd and bold were her methods of conversation." and so "caustic and candid of tongue" was she. that "there were visiton who found her company agitating"

(17). Cameron's highly dramatic. openly emotional nature. together with the bustle and clutter of Dimbo k hdge (especially when photogmphs were king produced and strange figures were seen to wander. donning wings or dressed as prophets or khgs). gave a young Annie Thackeray Ritchie the fcehg that she was backstage at a theatre: "Indeed. we ail seemed to be perfomiing parts in some fànciful pageani. making klieve. and yet thoroughly earnest as children at their play" (Reminiscences 14). To Mr. Wilfied Ward.

Mrs. Cameron was not only a dazzling actress, draped in red velvet, but "was stage

manager of what was, for us young people. a great drama" (qtd in Hinton 33).

Obviously. in her private "life." Julia was quite far fiom being a "propcr lady"--at

least in the Victorian sense of the word. Yet. to retum once again to my previous line of

inte~ogation:why the continued reference to Cameron as "Mrs. Cameron" and the

"iady"? As 1 have previously noted in the case of Lewis Carroll. for exampk. these appelations rnay. in iarge part. be reiated to the fact that rnany of her male contemporaries wished to undermine her sMls and enforce a reading of woman and artût as inferior. mcompetent, and thus unthreatening. For. as Julia Swindells observes. "[tlhe nineteenth- century hûtory of the professions is largely about safeguarding carcers for gentlemen. and defhp and redefuiing . . . stnictures of work in relation to male power" (qtd in Corbett

61). But. however persuasive. such an explanation does not leave room to consider the possibility of Cameron's own delikrate panicipation in the creative process-in this case the process of "xkreationT*--and.thus. tends to reiterate that stereotypical depiction of

Cameron as the naive lady amateur.

Therefore. in an effon both to counter those critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who have tended to negate or ignore any sense of agency on Carneron's pan

(especially in their condernnation of her deliberately "soft" photos as the result of a woman's lack of control over the processes involved in photo-taking). and to renâer even more ex plicit the subversive and transgressive tendencies 1 have found in Cameron's Me and art. 1 will suggest that if Cameron was viewed as the ideal image of femininity by the

Victorian (re)viewing public, despite her eccentricities. it was because she exened a peat amount of deliberate effort in order to appeur so. More specificaily. 1 will offer that

"Mn." Cameron was an astute business woman. conscious not only of the limitations which her status as a wornan. wife and mother in Victorian Britain piaced upon her. but of how potentially thnatening to prevailing conceptualizations of ferninine propriety and to patrhrchal authonty her more ambitious designs to usurp the "masculine" role as a producer. rather than mere object of, professional an photographs could be considered.

Thus. even though she pnvately reveakd a distinct resistance to partkular standards and conventions of artistic production. and greater desires for herself and her an than would be considered proper of the "lady amateur." I believe that Cameron kmw that if she was to achieve for herself and her work the kind of critical acclaim and financial reward enjoyed by her male contemporaries. she would have to. at the very least. outwardly appeur to adhere to the dominant codes of behavior assigned to her as a bourgeois wornan. In short. Julia Margaret Cameron was not only a perfonner. in the senx that she loved amateur theatre and lived her life drarnaticaily. Rather. as a woman in the nineteenth century with "lofiy ambitions" to become a serious yet popular and successful practitioner of fme-an photogmphy. Cameron felt compeiled to take pan in wbat we rnight now recognize as a form of the "wornanliness masquerade." through the creation of a public persona that compiied with Victorian codes of ideal bourgeois f~rnininity.~

Prominent theoriu of feminism and the gaze. Mary AM Doane. wntes that "to masquerade is [in part] to crcate a gap in the form of a iack betwcen one's self and one's

8 As Angicla Lrigbim points ait in the "Intrcducticni ll" section of Vicrorian Womm Pocrs: An Anthology, ihe cllaccpt af the masquerade is crucial Io ubdentaading many Victorian womn artists' lives and worirs. Accading to Liaton. the imas of tbe mask is a ircunrnt me in Victorian wamcn's poetry thai "hints ai the dificultics womcn encaintcrcd in ideniifjing themselves as pets in a socieiy wbich. on the one hanci. cast them in an ummiiiiagly sentimntal mould, and. an the derhad, was astoiiished at thcir mmexis :e" (xxxvi). image" (33). In iight of such a suggestion. perhaps the ciearest evidence of Cameron's awareness of, and participation in. a "masquerade of ideal femininity" may be found in her

1873 unfinished autobiopphy. "Annals of My Gkss HOUK." It iS here. at the moment of self-authorship par excellence that 1 perceive a concened effort to be exened on

Carneron's part in the cmtion and circulation of a sociaily acceptable image of herseif and her work (a kind of literq self-portrait of the anist. taken "deiiberately out-of-focus"). so as to outwardîy appear to comply with the fundamental tenets of the Victorian "Cuh of ldcal Femininity," cvcn as she simultaneously stepped outside the passive. domestic rok she was assigned by Victorian gender convention. in order to photograph. to write. and even to live the aesthetic lifestyk. and wak about fnely. "body unconetted," hair "fahg every which way but the nght way." But before 1 undertake such an analysis of

Cameron's "Annals." a brief summary of Joan Rivière's now famous essay "Womanliness as Masquerade" (1929) is wonh including here. both to elucidate my sense of Cameron as a participant in the "masquerade of ferninjnity." and to render more explicit what 1 mean by my use of such a term. Ahof particukr interest to this discussion will be Sandra

Giiben and Susan Gubar's text. The Mudwomri in the A&. as it extends Rivi&e's concept of the masquerade to an analysis of the Victorian woman writer, and provides a set of radhg urategies for the contemporary reader to ncognize a iiterary manifestation of the "wornanliness masquerade" as an act which involves the sirnultancous evocation and subversion of standard masculim styles and fomof writing.

Settmg the stage for kter theorists of gender Ue Judith Butkr who have sought to expose. or unrnask. as it were. the gendered economy of power and desire nsponsible for desipting and goveming the rok. piace. and prception of men as powerfbl. active agents of culture (what Laura Mulvey calls "denof meaning"). and of women as the dependent, passive obpcts within the private sphere (as "beanrs of meminp"). Rivière conceptualizes fernininity not as a universai. ahistorical essential biology rooted in the

body. but, rather. as an elaborate. yet potentially mutabk. social construction which she calls the "masquerade of womanliness." Rivière explains:

Womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a rnask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to aven the reprisals expected if [a woman] was found to possess it--much as a thief wili tum out his pockets and ask to k ~archedto pmve that he has not the stolen goods. The rcader mynow ask how 1 defne womanliness or where 1 draw the line between womanliness and the "rnasquerade." My suggestion is not. however. that the is any such dfierence; whether radical or superficial. they are the sarne thing (qtd in Doane 34).

For Rivière. fernininity is both fundamentaliy a play of masks. and 2 conceptual form of disguise that the female "wearer" dons so that she may move kyond her socially prescrikd ro le w ithin the "active/male." "passive/female" patriarchal stnicturing of gender relations. while stiU appearing to k in complete cornpliance with the system she defies. In her most famous case study. Riviére observes a femak academic lecturing quite impressively before a predominantly male audience. At the end of the lecture, the woman is seen flirt hg girlishly with her male pers in the front row. In her own suMwization of

Rivière's masquerade thesis. Mary Ann Dcane calls this khaviour a presentation of ''an excess of femininity," in which the woman "becornes the very image of femininity in order to compensate for her 'hpse' into su bjectivity" as she takes on the position of the "subject of speech (as a kcturer, as an intekctual woman with a certain amount of power)"--or. 1 would add. as the subjeft of the gaze as an an ist or ait photographer (33). In effect . the wornan plays mto and plays up prescribed notions of femininity so as to "compensate for a perceived kck which may be received in her acquisition of a male subject position of authority" (34).

Durhg the reign of Queen Victoria, ideal femininity was. of course. prescnptiveiy defhed as passive, domestic. and reproductive. As such. those women in the Victorian era who. out of choice or necessity. decided to take up the pen. the paint bmsh. or. in the case of Julia Maqaret Cameron. the 'Re-Raphaelite camera," and who sought to participate openly with any amount of seriousness in the public business of anistic production. not only faced a greaeat deal of intemal pressure in the fom of a female

"anxiety of authorship." but were also met with the potential threat of public aliemtion or cultural stigmatization as "mad and rnor~strous."~Thur. as Sandra Gilbert and Susan

Gubar adroitly point out in The Modwoman in the Attic. with such rigid restrictions being placed upon vhually every aspect of women's participation in anistic production. there were oniy a limited number of options or strategies of mistance available to artistic women who. üke Julia Margaret Cameron. mught to move beyond the patriarchal defmition of woman's "natural" rok, or subven patriarchal aesthetic and anistic conventions. but who wished to do so without damagine their social npitations in such a way as io impede their pubiic accepmce, as well as their potential for fuiancial or cultural success. Aside f?om suppressing her anistic work entirely. the writmg wornan. for

Tbat is nai IO Say. ofcairsc. that wmn's panicipation in the arts was cwpletely prevcnied. While the Victorian social consinictioc dfemininity dictated tbai wanan's pl= was xcpraductivc and passive. ratbcr than mativcly praiucrivr. ewrgng bairgcas ccdes cf prq,riety pmded œnain kinds af mative endeavairs for wantn. Fa cxamplc. pnstimcs sucb as embruîdery, watercdair painting, and even amateur phaograpby wcre dctmd appropriate fa w-n. and wew denconsideml quite central to a wanan's &finition as a =finrd "lady." Hawcwr. tbc numkr of ariistic media matcrials. and subject matter detmd appropriate for wamn were rigidly nsiricird. Above all, a wanan's punuii of art was acceptable dyas long as it was practid as an amateur paztim. cclming sccadary to ber dermaicd and wifcly dutics in the hame. Fu a mmdetailcd discussion of the œncraiity of womcn's creativity to baiqpois propriety. oae shaild consult bah Parker and Pdlock's book. Old Mistresses. and Dcùxaù Cbcrry's M.Painting Women. example. could "publish [her work] pseudonymously or anonyrnously." thereby negating any links between herself and her art. or she could bow to cultural constraint by "modestly confess[ingJ her fernale 'limitations' and concentrat[ing] on the 'lesser' subjects reserved for ladies as becornine to their infenor power" (64). As Giiben and Gubar point out. however. such manoeuvres not ody provided their usen with limited power. but ofien. only funher exacerbated the female artist's feelings of anxiety and "schizophrenia."

The more successful women (among whose ranks 1 wish to count Julia Margaret

Cameron) "managed the difficult task of achieving tnie fernale literq authority" by

"simultaneously conforming to and subvening patriarchal literary standards" (73). That is. rather than choosing to suppress their gender. or theù identities. or both. through the use of a nom de plume. for exampk. these women perfonned the "rnasquerade of femiwllty." by "publicly presenting acceptable façades for private and dangerous visions .

. . to obscure but not obüterate their most subversive impulses" (74).

For some writen. gainhg social acceptance meant disguising not only their own transgressiveness as women who were also seeking to be serious artists. but also any potentially subversive content in their works. According to Gilbert and Gubar. this kind of literary rnasquerade was achieved through the creation of multi-layered or "paiimpsestic" works bb~h~~surface designs conceal[ed] or obscure[d] deeper. less accessible (and kss sociaily acceptable) meaning." or through the irnpiicit revision of male genres. which were then used by the women to "record their own drearns and their own storks in disguise"

(emphasis my own) (73). As a rcsuh. Gilbert and Gubar suggest that, to the contemporary reader. the "witing of these women often seems 'odd' m relation to the predomuiantly male literary history defmd by the standards of. . . patriarchal poetics" and "do not [quite] seem to 'fit' hoany of those categories to which Our herary historians have accustomed us" (74).

It is perhaps no surprise, and, as I will now argue, cenainiy no accident resulting fiom any fernale "mcompetency." that the autobiography of the woman whom cntics and contempraries found "eccentric" and hill of ïinexpected contradictions" Û similarly contndrtory. and somewhat "odd" in its style and form. 1 am not the oniy one to have found Cameron's "Annais" an odd. and somewhat tricky picce of work. In her book on

Cameron. Annuls of My Ghss House. Violet Hamilton cak the "Annals" "stylisticaUy erratic." and " . . . a diffcult manuscript to interpret because the core issues are sugpsted rather than developed (and] the phrases are full of innuendo as opposed to statements. as opposed to fact" (1 8). It is precisely this "ambiguous" quality which 1 wili suggest signals an underhanded resistance on Cameron's pan to Victorian gender ideology. and which may indicate her participation in a literary as well as cuitural "masquerade of wo rnanliness. "

The fmt and perhaps most obvious contradiction (at least to a Victorian reading audience) that deserves Our cntical attention is the noticeable gap ktween the genre of the text and the pnder of its author. According to Mary Jean Corbett in her study.

Representing Fernininip. in the nineteenth centuiy. autobiography was considered to be a highly public and therefore primarily masculine form of discoune in which men of merit

(literary or otherwise) usually wote of their lives and personal accomplishrnents within the public sphere. for wider popukr circuiation and consurnpion Meanwhik. the cultural constniction of women set forth by the VictoMn "Cu h of TmWomanhoodT' precluded any such autobiopphical address insofar as the respectable bourgeois woman's place was in the home, as the passive, private domestic care-giver, and such "quotidienne" act ivities were not considered wonhy of public praise.*O

Why, then. would a woman iike Julia Margaret Cameron deliiberately choose such a lofty form within which to record her life and her artistic camr in "Ar& of My Glass

House"? Moreover. hwdid she do so? What was her chosen method of avoidmg social stigmatization? A signifïcant part of the answer to the question of why may relate to the fàct that autobiography was. in both style and tone. a genre which aEordtd its usen a certain amount of culturd authority. Keeping in mind Gilbert and Gubar's List of suitabk stratepies avaiiable to the ambitious woman writer. it would not be urneasonable to sugpest that Cameron's use of the autobiographical form was a delikrate and conscious one, as pan of a greater concened effon to gain consideration as a serious artist. and to achieve for herself b4evenone single grain of the momentous mountain heap of profits" and csteem afforded her male contemporaries, very much &er the manner that women such as

George Sand or George Eliot. for example. domed the garb of the male gentleman or the masculine iiterary pseudonym and narrative voice as attempts to enjoy the power and frecâom afforded Victorian men. The following quotation. taken fiom a letter wntten to

Sir John Herschel. lends fùnher support to one such reading of Cameron. For. in ihis panicular passage. Cameron demonstrates. with surprishg aiacrity, both her awareness of the powehl authority assigned to her male contemporaries by Victorian society's uneven

'O h is impatani to point ait tbat. alrbaigh autobiograpby was scxîdly caistnicted as a "m;ixulim"discame . bdh due to its content. ami due to tbe fact tbat autobiogapbical wri ting invdvcd a proccss of conspicuais self- prandm ancl self-projcctioa wbich was considerrd anti-thetical to pnvailing assumptiaas abat femininity. many wamn did indccd wtite in this mode. Huwever. as Mary Jean Corbett suggicsts in Rcprwcriling Fdniniry. wamn wbo wishcd to use the autobiographical fom bad to cmploy a mat &al of strate= in ordcr to avad the "risics" associated with transgessing Victorian cales of prqnicty "Famiddleclass autobiograpbers .. .the 'public discame* of auiobiopphy [had) CObt ntgaiaied. at ieast in part. by and Lhraigh the npirscniation of the gender economy. and her need to appropriate t in order to gain success. when she asks for Henchel's autopph on a photopph she took of hm, as a method of boosting the des3f her photos: " . . . your name wouM justly add enorrnously to my reputation and thus greatly quicken the sale of my photopphs--which is for me most needfiil now" (qtd in Hamilton 28). In her "Annals," Cameron reveals a simüar awareness of the cuttural potency assigned not only to men. but to certain "ob#ctive." "rational." and traditionaily

"masculine" forms and styles of writing over more femswie. "gushing" ones. She sipals such awareness through hrr inclusion of a Temysonian intenext. and. towards the end of the fmt paragraph. through her self-conscious dechation that she feels "confident that the trutffil account of indefatigable work . . . WUadd in some rneasure to (her autobiography 's] value" (qtd in Weaver 154).

Ckarly. Julia Margaret Cameron recognkd the powcr axribed to the masculine position in Victorian society. But if Cameron saw the necessity of usurping male authority. she must cenainly have recopmi the restrictions pkced on women such as herself by the rigid Victorian economy of gender-an economy which defmed her rok as passive object and not active subject. In other words. she would also have becn aware of the potential anxiety that her open and delibcrate use of the autobiographical fonn. and her appropriation of a maxulinised subject position could provoke. Because her desire for ppular acceptance and material succcss was as great as. ifnot pater than. her desire to subven Vktorian conventions of gender and photography. she knew she could not afford to deliberately bunt hcr transgressiveness as George Sand and others did.

private sphere" a by and tbraigti the evocation of certain "inkrior" grms cf writing assaiated wiih wo~~n.such as the diary a the mernoir (11). Such appears ta bp the case wiib Cameron in her "Annals." To retum to the second question: how. then, did Carneron "enter mto a discourse from which [she was]. in ideological terms, supposed to be excluded"? (Corbett 10).

Mary Jean Corbett suggests that for most "rniddle-class women autobiographers. the only way to write and still maintain respectability in the public domain, was to negotiate the

'public discoune' of autobiography . . . at least in pan, by and through the representation of the pnvate sphere," and by and through the evocation of more traditionally ''ferninine" genres such as the memoir. to bc used as a kind of ekborate outer garb of ferninine complicity with which to cover over the iiterary "rational dress" of public autobiopphy.

Potential textual evidence of Cameron's active participation in this very son of literary. as weU as cultural, performance of 'bexcessivefemininity" as a method of "making it in a man's world abounds in her written "Anna1s"--the most obvious exampk king found in the work's title itself: "An~lsof My Gkss HOUK."Althoueh clearly appropriating the masculine form of the public autobiography in order to celebrate and promote her Me and photographie works and, by extension. a subject position which has ken culturaliy defmd as masculine (an act of appropriation which is signalled by her use of the fmt-person possessive pronoun "my" in the work's titk). Cameron strategically advenises her work as her "annals" and. later. in the text. her "anecdotal little history9'-- tem which. as indicated by Corbctt. would seem much more evocative of the "ferninine"

(and t hereforc su pposedly "inferior") tradition of the memoir.

A similar act of seeming feminme mepitude is performed through Carneron's mithg style. In the ktparagraph, afier having rcvealed her howkdge that a rcplated, detached styk of writing "would add some measure to [her work's] value." and having exhibited her ability to wnie in such a marner as to avoid "details strictly pmonal and touching the affections." she declares emphaticdy that "it is [only] with great dinculty

that 1 restrain my overfiow of hem" (qtd in Weaver 155). What follows is an apparent

"kpse into subjectivity"--to use Mary Ann Doane's expression-as Cameron proceeds to

wax poetic on the very same subjects she clallns to how to avoid. thus reinforcing pre-

existing cultural constructions of the female writer as an uncontrolled. emotional

"improvisatrice" who is not talented or intelligent enough to appear as a serious threat to

the professional male writer.

The infantile and depuident image which Cameron constructs of henelf in

"hnak" seems to funher endorse a reading of her writing strategy as a delikrate

performance of "excessive fernininity." Whik privately railing against her victimizat ion at

the hands of critics who "caiied and condernn'd" her work "out-of-focus" and arnateurish

in letten to Sir John Herschel. in "Annals of My Glass House." she gives herself to k

seen pkying the part of the bumbling femak incompetent. Careful to affm her own

status as a "lady" and an "amateur." "Mn." Cameron overphys the "accidental" and

"flukish" nature of her work. remarking upon her "habit of ninning into the dining room

with my wet pictures." a habit that resulted in the staining of "an immense quant ity of table

ken with nitrate of silver. indelible stains." and one that she exckirns with cenainty

"should have banished [her] from any kss indulgent household" (155-6).

A simikr and particularly cornmon tendency of Cameron's that has been noted elsewhere by her biopphers. and which manifests itxif in hcr writing. is her (re)asxrtion of her reverence for, and dependency upon, her husband and hcr male contemporaries for their encouragement. support. and inspiration. while consistently downplaying or eficing her own abilities. Although Carneron was clearly proud of her successes and took several opponunitks to advenise any praise or awards she received for her an photos. she was

careful to temper her elation with an exaggerated amount of humiluy in public." In

"AM& of My Glass HOUK,"Cameron thus speaks of Sir Henry Taylor as her "peat

Master," "Teacher and High Priest [who] [flrom my earliest childhood I had loved and

honoured . . ." ( 157). She calls the pamter G. F. Watts "II Signor" as a sign of reverence.

Most tellins is her expiicit comparison between her own work and that of a "superior"

male contemponry named MayaiI: "Meanwhile 1 took another imrnonal head. that of

Alfnd Tennyson. . . . The Laureate has since said of it that he kes it better than any

photograph that has been taken of hirn except one by Mayall; that 'except' speaks for

tself. The comparison seems too cornical. It is rather iike comparing one of Madame

Tussaud's waxwork heads to one of Woolner's ideal heroic busts" (qtd in Wcaver 157).

The following quotat ion not only illuminates Cameron's feigned dependency on

male approval, but. on a deeper level, it reveals her own sense of herseif as self- consciously pkying a role. In this particular passage. she expticitly contiigures herself as a

performer and her husband as the audience to which she bows: "My husband from fust to

hst has watched every picture with delight. and it is my daily habit to run to him with every glass upon which a fiesh glory is newly stamped, and to listen to his enthusiastic applause" (qtd in Weaver 155-56). Cameron funher reveals her sense of henelf (as a

middle-class wornan and as an artist ) as a highly visible social performer when. in the opening paragraph of the "Annals," she kens her photography to a child or a debutante

" Tbat Camem was privately quiie happy with ber successes and had a grrat deal offaith in ber own abilities is evi&nt in a letter written to ber sister. Adcline Vaughn. 15 Nwcmbr 1875. wbexlrin sbe states "1 bave no pri&. 1 have a Fat &al of confidence in rnyself & my fellaw maturrs & if they disappaint me 1 am mmsary fa thcir sakes han my own" (qtd in Weaver. 27). who. in preparation for her fjrst "coming out." mut bt appropriately "clothed with light as with a $arment" to be nceived into high social circles.

With her art photopphs. Julia Margaret Camron attempted to blur the lines dividurg art and photography. In Me, she sought to break down the cultural positionhg of

"woman" and "anist" as antithetical by seeking a ten-year career as a serious and successful art photographer. But in her pubüc aurobiography. she downplays these more radical endeavoun by re-asserting a rhetorical link between domesticity and photography.12 In the opeiiing of "~~akof My Glass House." for example. Cameron makes an explicit analogy between rnaternal reproduction and mistic production by kenhg her photogmphy to a child that 'how ten years old. has passed the age of iisping and starnering and may speak for itself . . . " (154). And again. a few paragmphs later, she speaks of her carnera. a gift fiom her daughter Julia in 1863. with such affection as a mother might bestow on her fmt-bom child: "[Flrorn the fmt moment 1 handled my lem with a tender ardour. and it has become to me as a living thing. with voice and memory and creative vigour" ( 154).

The process of "domestication" which Cameron attempts to undenake fguratively in her rhetorical constmction of photography as an extension of "wornanTswork"

(rnaternal reproduction) within the domestic sphen is literaiized in her descriptions of the transformation of several sections of the family estate into a home studio: "1 tumed my coal-house mto a dark room and a giazed fowl-house 1 had given to my children kcame

" h miy br nad. ibaigb. tbat Cmembad prbaps lcss Wak" to do in assenine a lidt btmnphaography and domcsticity than. say. wamn painters. For, then werc (and continue to br ) a vat many culturai links king made between phaogmphy adche ciunestic spherr. Faexample. Piem Bardieu points ait tbe ccntraiity of the phdo album and tbe family parrrait in the crratioa of a sense dcahesim witbin the Western "cult ddarwsticity.'' in his text On Phorogtaphy. Similady. Lindsay Smith mes tbat the ctpdogicai mot of the tcrm "fms"is "hearth" in ber essay. 'The Pditics of Fms:Feminism and Phaography Theory." my glass house. . . . [Tlhe society of hens and chickens was soon changed for that of pets, prophets, painters and lovely maidens, who al1 in tum have imrnortalued the humble btle fhn erection" (qrd in Weaver 155). Cameron's inclusion of such a fact seems to endorse an image of her process of anistic production as one that is symbiotic with. but neatly subsumed within. the pnvate sector. However. visitors to Dimbola at any the over the course of the ten yem when Carneron pursued the photographic arts became acutely aware of the hct that. in rcality. "photography had priority over household affairs"

(Hinton 2 1 ). According to Helmut Gernsheim.

[tlhe Cameron household soon had to adjust itself to the new pursuit of its mistress. The smeU of collodion mingkd with the scent of the sweet briar. copying-frarnes were spread on the lawn. . . . As the mai& were occupied in acting as rnodels or dark- room assistants. the guests had to answer the door. and were ofien kept waiting a long tirne for lunch. (Gemsheirn 22)

Domestic a£fairs were in a particular state of disanay whüe Cameron was occupied shooting a series of photographic illustrations for Tennyson's poetry anthology. "Idylls of the King." as household items and household inhabitants were all sumndered for the cause of photography. Annie Thackeray records her mernories of the Cameron household during production t irne:

1 cannot tell you how much we enpy it all: of a moming the Sun comes biazing so cheerfully. and the sea sparkles. and ihere is a far-away hili al1 green. and a cottage which takes one's breath it looks so pretty in the rnoming mists. Then comes cggs and bacon. The we go to the dom top. Then we lunch off eggs and bacon. Then we have tea and look out the window. then we pylittle visits. then we dine off eggs and bacon, and of an evening Minny and Emmy. robed m pictunsque shawls. sit by the fm. and Miss Stephen and 1 stroil about in the rnoonlight (qtd in Mavor 46).

Camcron herself sccrned to rcnder even more expiicit than Gernsheim the often antagonistic rdat ionship ktween domesticity and artistic production m an inscription written in one of her albums. given as a gifi to a fiiend: "Fatal to photopphs an cups of tea and coffee. candles and kmps. and children's fineen!" (qtd in Hinton 33). However. in her public "Annals." it is this very son of antagonism that Carneron's work seems particuhrly careful to disavow. in order that she may put fonh an vMp of herseif and her art as consmat ive of prevailing conceptualizations of art and femininity.

I wish to close this chapter by undertaking a very brief examination of a photo- graph. taken not by. but of Julia Margaret Cameron in 1858. by Lewis Carroll (Fig. 1).

This photograph if of particukr use to this discussion in pat because it renders more expiicit the economks of power and gender within which 1 have previously suggested

Cameron found herself enmeshed as both an artist of prominence. and as a woman in the

Victorian en. However. when analyzed in conjunction with another photograph taken by

Cameron's son. Charles (Fig. 2). it also lenàs funher vûual evidence of Cameron's use of a "wornanliness masquerade" to both resist and conform to cultural codes of ideal bourgeois feminlliity. At fyst giance, the Carroll photograph seems to fit neatly into the category of the tradit ional family portrait. so often found gracing the waUs of the bourgeois Victorian home. Mn. Cameron models as a rnother. dressed in upper rniddle- class fmery, hair neatly arranged after the fashion of that most famous Victorian mother.

Queen Victoria. Apparently, she has ken gathered by the photographer and bade to submit to his commands to sit with her chiidren in a tableau of idyilic domesticity. Both the style of hcr clothing and the posturing of Carneron's head (tilted slightly downward). are rneant to express the woman's modesty, humility. and apparent servitude. whilc the pmence of her chikiren funher serve to visualiy encode Julia Margarei Cameron as the mode1 of ideal Victorian femininity within the photograph. Upon cloxr analysis. however. the viewer uncoven several details in the frame which dismpt the standard photographer/subject. photographed/obpct distinction that govemed the standard practice of portrait photopphy, and which thus undermine any casy categorization of thû photopph as a "conventional" portrait. ponraying a typically ferninine bourgeois woman and her children. Of paticukr note is'the rather unconventional posing exhibited in this photograph. If this is intended to be one of those carrfuiiy posed studio portraits. the children do not appear to bc pticuhrly CO-openitive or disciplined. The younger. presumably Henry. kneels at the side of his mother. lip slightly protniding in a childish sulk. looking ready to hide behind his mother's skins to escape the tedium of sitting for the photo. The elder. Charks. seems pre-occupied by romething off-set and tums his gaze to concentrate on the object of greater interest. My

Cameron looks ahead. towards the camera (the impon of which. 1 wiU retum to momentarily). The photograph also reveals a greater proxiMty of bodies. and a more open expression of affection between those bodies, than was normally observed in the conventional studio ponrait. or. indeed. in Victorian public generaly. Here, Henry clings to his motherTsside. while Charles holds tightly to hk motherTshand. Juxtaposed with the visual siens of passive obedience and matemity. is the suggestion of the woman's activity and agency. which is expressed through Cameron's straight-forward look. as well as the fountam pen. poiscd for action in her kfi hand.

A series of provocative tensions are thus visuaily encoded into the picturc. the origk of which the contemprary vkwer is kh to ponder. as several questions of

"intention" arise: what are the respective contributions of the photopapher. and of the mode1 in the consmiction of this photograph? Who decided that Cameron be dnssed and then posed with her children in such a way? Cameron? Carroll? Both? Did Cameron insist on behg portrayed m the act of writing? Did she break the pose. resist submitting to the camera (and Carroll's) objectifying gaze. by retuming the cameraman's look at the kt minute?''

Little to no definite information exists about the Carroll photograph. by whom it was commissioned. or for what purposes. However, if we compare the image with another mon intirnate. and decidedly persona1 portrait of Cameron. taken in 1870. by her son. Charles (Hg. 2). it seems kely that Carroll's photograph was a mon carefully orchestrated image. created for public consumption (or at kast open display). afier the manner of the ppular carte-de-visite photographs of the &y. or, more specifcally. der the rnanner of Cameron's self-representat ion in her public "Armais." Charks' image of

Cameron. on the other hand, seems to render visuaîly the more private and unrestrained

Julia observed by family friends and neighboun. garbed in Indian shawls. %air falling any way but the right way."

In keeping with my desire to read agency in Cameron's lifé and work. 1 wish to suggest that we rnay also view the Carroll photograph as a metaphor of the Victorian gendered visual economy. and Cameron's strtiggle within it to publically appear at once learned and capable and. yet. okdient and non-threatening. Within this metaphorical reading, the male photographer's bok (of which the photograph is the palpable result) npresents the patriarchal gaze placed on Cameron as both woman and high-profüe anist.

- '' It is at ibis momnt that 1wish to ~mindtbe mader of the tenuais naturc of the nadinp of bave knin providecl, cd' the pbotogmphs dCarneron. as well as thcase picturcs taken by Camema. As 1have naed in the intraduction. and as Jay Ruby points ait in bis book Sccwc rhc Sliadm: Dcath and Phorography in Amcrica. "(i]ntentioaality is always dificult to detexmine when contemplating a pimugraph or any dermcdiated communicative fmin wbich the sender and reœiver am scparated by time and space (Wcxth and Gras 1981).'* Thus. "[o]ne is fmd Supposing he successfuiiy coerced Cameron into appearing in the picture as the image of deal femininity. Canoll would also seem to represent-on a more localized kvel--those men who sought to depict Cameron as the passive. femak amateur. for the sake of defbsing her potential to threaten or compte with them Cameron's mere presence in the photograph. together with conventional ferninine garb and submissive pose. would seem to represent her apparent acceptance of her obbct status within the visual economy. or, pcrhaps. her knowlcdge of her need to pive hcrself up to bc looked at as an object. By contrast. Cameron's defiant look back at the photographer and spectator suggests both the wornan photographer's knowledge of. and her subtle (but defmt) resistance to. her status as ferninine object. In this way. the Carroll photograph may provide an intensting visual example of Cameron's participation in that cultural performance known as the

"masquerade of womanliness." and strenphens the claim that Julia Margaret Cameron was not an exclusively passive. "ferninine" artist. nor did she always "take" well to king on the other side of the camera.

[as 1do here] to conjecture about whcse intention yai ate l&ng at in a cammercially pduced pbaopph-the sitter's a pbaqrapber's?' (63). CHAPTER 2

"A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN? Julia Margaret Cameron('s) 'Take(s) ' on the Pre-Raphaelite Cult of Ferninine Beauty

'There rcrnains somethg that cannot bc silenced. that nUs you with an unmly desire to lcnow what her name was, the woman who was alive there, who even now is st iil real and will never consent to be wholly absorbed in art" Walter Benjamin (qtd in Iverson. 453).

"Herein we have eyes so full of fervent love . . . A mouth where silence scems to gather strength 1 From lips so gently closed. that alrnost say. 1 'Ask not my story. lest you hear at kngth I Of sorrows where sweet hope has lost its way . . ."

Julia Margare t Cameron (from her poem. "ûn a Portrait.")

In her now famous essay on women. fh. and the gcndered gaze. "Visual Plcasure and Narrative Cinerna." Laura Mulvey assens that "[iln a world ordcred by sexual imbaiance." and wherein "pleasure in looking has been split between activeIrnale and passive/fernale." "woman functions as sipfk for the male other." She is thus ricd to her place as bearer of meaningl.] not maker of meaning and [to] her role as objet not subject of the look" as "[tlhe determinhg male gaze projccts its fàntasy ont0 the female figure, which is uykd accordingly" ( 19). It would appear that. within a Victorian visual economy that designated the subject of the gaze as masculine. Julia Margaret Cameron's desire to "look" through the phallic kns of the camcra as a serious fine-art photographer. was. so to spak. a desire to "look" like a man. Indeed. as 1 have argued in the prcvious chapter. Julia Margaret Camcron did take up. with a grcat deal of seriousncss. t wu roks which. m the nineteenth century, were considend "masculine"--the desof the spectatorial subject through photopphy, and the masculine authorial subject through the act of writing public autobiography. As I have funher suggested. thwas a fact of which she was acutely aware. and which must have motivated her to take part in a "masquerade of excessive ferninindy" as a method of downpiaying or "masking" her transgressive behaviour. in order to avoid social stigmatization.

But it is one thing to state that Julia Margaret Cameron occupied a position which was defincd as masculine. as a producer of culture through art photography. It is quite another to suggest that her art photographs are the product of a masculine "look" at the femak subjects of her fancy photos and posed art tubleoux. and. thus concomittantly. of a sexist economy of desire and power, which Laura Mulvey. and other recent theorists of a gendercd gaze. suggest that such a "look" entails. Therefore, it is the central focus of this second chapter to reconsider and probkrnatize my previous assertior? that. in performing the "masquerade of womanliness." Cameron sought to appropriate and replicate the masculine "look." Through a more careful analysis of Cameron's art photographs of "Fair

WomenW--anabundant but surprisingly neglected section of her work-and her poem "On a Ponrait." I hope to assess Cameron's contribution to--and ber reactions against-a

Victorian cultural discoune on fernininity. and. most particularly. her response to the tendencies within the theory and practice of art in the Victorian age to reduce na1 women to that silent, static object of masculine scopic desire. "~oman."'~ *

14 The distinctim 'Wanrn" iuxi "Womaa" bas ken barawed from Tema & Laulttis' seminai wdTechnologies of Gcndn (the capiialization of "Woman" king my own additim to & Lauretis' distinction. as a nwthod â furrhcr emphasizing the ciifference bctwcta tbe two categuies). De Laurrtis explains: "By 'woman' 1man a fictid caisuuct. a distillate from divcxsc bit coagnient discairns dclminant in Western cultures (criticai and scicn~ific. lilerary a juridicial discai~xs).which worirs as bah their vanistiing poini and their spcific condition of In their bwk. Women Artists and the Pre-Ruphadire Movement, Jan Manh and

Pamela Gedh Nunn divide the Pre-Raphaelite Movement into three generat ional waves.

spanning the Victorian period from 1848 to 19 10. Of particular interest to this discussion

is the Second Generation (1 865-80). to which Manh and Gerrish Nunn refer as the

"Rossettian" sect of Pre-Raphaelitism. so named after the movement's most conspicuous

and promc member during this the: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Accordhg to Manh and

GedhNunn, after the dissolution of the original Brotherhood around 1853. Rossetti took the heh of the avant-garde coterie and Pre-Raphaelitism's aesthetic objectives soon shifted away fiom nature transcribed in greatest detail (der the teachings of the great

Victorian art cntic John Ruskin) towards a new central focus: feminine beauty. Women kcame such a central element to the work produced by the Second Generation Pre-

Raphaelite artists that. in the twentieth century. the term "Pre-Raphaelite" stil) "can nfer not to a style or period of painting. but to a specific feminine look" (6).

Much critical consideration has been devoted to examinine the strategies of gender representation in the works of the Second Wave Pre-Raphaelites such as Rossetti and

William Morris. One rcading to have emerged nom such considerations has ken that the

Pre-Raphaelites not only transgressed Victorian aesthetic codes through their avant-garde painting techniques. but that they to a large extent also subverted Victorian notions of heterosexuai mankd love. and of women as passionkss "Angels in the House." through their visual pmentations of women as ''PreRaphaelite stunnen" with long. loose haû. generous and over-exaggcrated lips and cyes, and sensual facial expressions, suggestive of

existence. By 'womea' cm the aber hanci, 1 will mean the mal histocical bringr wbo canna as ytbe defined amide of th- disculsive famatians, but whase material existence is nooetheless cenain" (5). profound longing. However. the general consensus--at least within feminist art histaries of Pre-Raphaelitism--seems to be that women. even models of transgressive sexuality such as Guinevere. the adu herous queen hmArthurian legend. are portrayed more as desirable objects than deshg subjects in Pre-Raphaelite art. For while Rossetti's women rnay appear to express desire. they are rarely depicted as subjbcts 8f the gaze. More often than not. they are repnsented with downcast eyes. their backs tumed from the viewer. or their faces siightly tilted (Fig. 3). The status of "Woman" as "objet de désirT' is reinforccd by the ways in which the images are doubly contained by the actual picture fiame and by the poetry ofien accompanying the art. which ofien provides another nanative hme through which to "read" the painting and the woman depicted therein (Pearce).

It has ken funher noted by Lynne Pearce in WonionlImagelText that the rnajorîty of the women whom the Pre-Raphaeiites chose to npresent visuaily fiom various literary. thcoIogica1, and historical texts. are quite ofien both Christian and secular models of fernale patience and virtue. such as the Virgin or Beatrice: these mythical women are most ofien depicted in scenes of captivity or utter helplessness that not only literaluc the emotional confuiement of these fict ional characters, but that also comment rather ironicaiiy to the modem viewer on the historical social. and political entrapment of the mlwomen models posing for the images.

Considering that Julia Margaret Cameron not only ofien deiiberately sought a dccidedly "Pre-Raphaelite" look through the chosen styles and subjects of hcr pictum. (as in Fig 4.. cntitkd Pre-Ruphelire Sdy) but that, like Rossetti she also took kauty--in particuîar, ferninine beauty-as the central focus of her work, it is not unexpcted that many cntics have contended that Cameron's an photopphs seem to probkmatically reproduce the sarne tendency to typify and objcctify women. Indeed. Cameron. in her own words. "loved all loveliness" and desired "to arrest all beauty that came before me"

(qtd in Weaver 155). Funher. as cntics have contmued to nad Cameron as "a traditional bourgeois wornan." her art photographs of women have tended to be rad as sVnilarly celebratory of wornan's place as the "Angel in the House" within the Victorian ideology of divided spheres. An example of one such reading appears in Constance Relüian's examination of Cameron's 1874-75 ilhistrations of Te~yson'sIdylfs of the King and other Poems, "Vivien, Ekine and the Model's Gaze: Cameron's Reading of Idylls of the

King." wherein Relihan argues that , iike those snakey-iimbed "stunners with bee-stung lips" in the paintings of Rossetti. "Cameron's images . . . seem to create an ideal of the female that diminishes its sexual passion and power. iransforming even Tennyson's most vibrant women into either Victorian ailegorical representations of fernale devotion and martyrdom. or into figures robbed of strength" (1 14).

Cenainly. such contentions are not without suppon. Cameron's tendenc y to t ypify people into allegorical subjects. and to use the faces and fomof young wornen to stand in as embodiinents of abstract ideals--most often Beauty- is apparent. not only in her photographs. as we will set. but also in her autobiography. wherein. for instance. she describes her mernories of fnends gathered near her Freshwater home on a Iovely sumrner's &y: "(S]urely Poary. Philosophy and Beauty were never more fitly represented than when Sir John Herschel, Henry Taylor and my own sister, Virginia Surnmers encirckd round the little font of the Monkke Church" (qtd in Weaver 157).

There an severai of Cameron's photographs which do indeed seem infiuenced by the Victorian conceptualization of ideal femininity as domestic. matemal, and passive. at the sarne time as they certahly reinforced such a construction. Particularly in Cameron's carly religious and typical photopphs. the image of "Wornan" is repeatedly configured as

Mary or the Madonna with child (Fip 5,6). The photo The Angel in the House (Fig. 7). inspired by Coventry Patmore's poem of the same title, which was a tract cekbrating domesticity and heterosexual manied life for women m the nineteenth century. npresents another attempt on Cameron's pan to give women "wings" as ideal types, whilc Dom as the BdelMrs. Ewan Hay Cameron reads like an advenisement m a contemporary brida1 pcriodical. emphasizing the appealing. stylish side of rnarriage. distilled in the image of the fashionably clad Viciorian bride (Fig. 8). The prominent display of wedding rings on the hands of many of the subjects (whether portrait or art tableaux). afier the fashion of the traditional engagement or wedding portrait (Fig. 9). aiso serves to reinscribe a narrative of matrimonial legitimacy mto the photograph. and suggests that Cameron's stance towards woman's or&ined destiny as wife and mother is one of endorsement and celebration. not critical rerct ion.

Nevenhekss. even as she adhered quite closely to the Pre-Raphaelite movement 's aesthetic pinciples and. ofien. to a conservative mode1 of passive fernininit y for her artistic subjects. 1 hesitate to read either the images. or their creator. as faitffil. unwavering supporters of th? dominant constructions of bourgeois femininity set forth by the Victorian

"Cuh of 'ïme Womanhood" and m pan reiterated by Pre-Raphaelitism. For. as in her lik. there are several subtk ambiguities embeddcd within Cameron's art--both visual and textual--which serve to undercut. or--to use Judith Butler's tenn-to ''trouble" any easy categorization of her photos as unproblernaticaliy "conservative" in their (n)pnsentations of femuiinty. These are ambiguities which cntics such as Mik Weaver have attemped to overlook in their desires to categorize both the woman and her work as strictly

"femEWie," rather than "ferninist." but which 1 wish to propose deserve funher investigation, as they may provide the basis for a valid late twentieth-century ferninist n-

(e)valuation of Cameron's art photopphs of women.

In the previous chapter. 1 attempted to counter the cntical consensus that Julia

Margaret Cameron was. in any simple sense. "a traditional bourgeois woman." by revealing such a conceptualization to be the nsult of Cameron's active part in the creation of a publically acceptable image of hcrself. through her participation in what Joan Riviere has called the "masquerade of womanliness." 1 would now Ue to extend a similar reading to Cameron's poem. "On a Ponrait" (1 875). and to several of her art photopphs. by suggesting that both sets of texts possess palimpsestic or "odd" quaüties which may signal the female author/ mist/photographer's attempt to textually "mask" her fiercely crît ical. but necessarily concealed. stance towards cultural convention-in this case. towards

Victorian constructions of femininiiy. paxticularly as manifest in Pre-Raphaelite visual representat ions of women.

In order to elucidate my sense that Julia Margam Cameron was privately quite critical of the Pre-Raphaelite "Cult of Ferninine Beauty." even as she appeared to occupy a place of privikge within the sacred circle of the Brotherhood 1 will kgin with a brief analysis of two poems. "In an Anist's Stuaio." by Cluistina Rossetti, and 'The Lust of the

Eyes," by Elizabeth SiddaL Reading "On a Portrait" alongside Rossetti and Siddal's subversive petry wiIL I hope. make more clw the ways in which Cameron's poem may k Eaid to reveal her deshs to subven Pre-Raphaelite theories of art and pnder repreîentation ''frorn within." as Rosctti and Siddal were two favoured Pre-Raphaelite models whose own poetic works are said to reveal a private but defiant resistance to. and discontent with. their treatment by Re-Raphaelite artists.

In Christha Rossetti's weü-known poem, "In an Artist's Studio." the speaker. a penon outside the artist-mode1 rehtionship, observes a series of phtings displayed amund an artist's vacated workspace. 1 take the suggestion of critics that this poem is

Rossetti's commentary on her brother. Re-Raphaelite pinter. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's okssive relationship with his model, and later wife. Elizabeth Sid&l. Thus, she xerns disturbed by the fact that "[olne face looks out from all his canvasses, /One selfsame figure sits or wah or leans" (1 -2)--a face he vampirically "feeds upon . . . by day and night" (6). '' The male artist has transfonned the fernale model from a real. living mdividual into various familiar character types ("A queen in opal or in ruby dress. 1 A . . . girl in fieshest surnrner greens/ A saint, an angel"). each with the same "face" and

"selfsame figure." but each remaining ''nameless" (5-7). Clearly. there is a disparity between the woman with "tme kind eyes. . . . found . . . hidden just behind those screns"

(3) and the woman rendered in the pintings. Having etched his desue onto the bhk

"screen" or mirror that is her face. it would seem that the painter has transkted the ml female model into what Laura Mulvey cak "the silent image of woman." He has crcated an artistic imerpretation of the woman "not as she is. but as she füls his &am" (1 4).

While Christ nia Rossetti has entered into the titerary canon as a major pet of the

Victorian Age. it is only in ment years that her sister-in-iaw, Elizabeth SW.has stamd to be considercd a poetic subject in her own ri@. Prcviously. Elizabeth Siddal had. for

" An example of ibis biographicai rcding of "in an Misr's Siudio*'appars in the intduc

Rossetti. Millais. and Hunt. to explore Siddal's own views. not only of herself, but of her rok within the Preaaphaelite movement. and in her nlationship with Dante Gabriel

Rossetti.

Siddal's poem. "The Lus? of the Eyes." provides a stanhgly bitter and ofien harsh insight into both Siddal's unhappiness with her treatment by her husband and lover

Rossetti. and her own feelings about the tendencies of the other Brotherhood pinten to take her. and women Iike her, as the epitome of female beauty. Using the fmt-person perspective of a male speaker ironically. Sid&l critiques the mirltreatment of women at the hands of male artists who take women for muses and models. dûregardhg everything beyond the model's appearance and her functional role as object. In the fmt lines of the poem. the speaker proc laims coldly: "1 cmnot for my Lady's sou 1 1 Though 1 wonhip kfore her smik; / 1 care not where be my Lady's goal I When her bcauty shall lose its wik" (1-4). With his piercing anist's gaze. he looks (rather than sees) "through her wüd eyes." as if there is nothing behind or beyond the visible face he gazes upon. or as if she is a uni-dimensional or transparent spectre. The poem contains a comrnon trope within Fk-

Raphaelite lireratun and art. particuhrly in Rossetti's crcations: the close link bctween

------pp . .is a touching uibute by [Christinaj .. .to the new star (Wizaberh Siddal]. wticse beauty ambiguaisly feeds the aaist's ravaging addiction" (354). death and eroticism16 Even in (or perhaps because of) death. the lady cannot escape the objectifying gaze: the anist appears more concemed with how the body will k displayed, wondering anxiously "who shall close my Lady's eyes / And who shall fold her hands?"

(13-14). It is clear, in his asking, "WU any hearken ifshe cries?" (IS), that the speaker is deaf to her voice and, therefore, to her subjectivity.

If. in style and content, Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs rnay be said to exhibit the overwhelming influence of the male Pre-Raphaelite painten and the "Rosscttian

Cuh of Feminine Beauty." the theme of her lesser-hown poem "On a Portrait" bears a closer resembhce to the works of Siddal and Rossetti. the sikntly resistant Pre-

Raphaelite "Sisten." At fint. the speaker in Cameron's poem. "On a Ponrait," scems. like Siddal's narrator. mon closely aligned with the male gaze of the art ist or art cntic.

In the fmt stanza. the speaker extois female beauty and the "rnighty Muence" of the

~ductive"secret. swifi. and subtle" spell that women have the power to exen ovcr men, very much in the way Vivien is depicted casting her spel over Merlin in Cameron's photo

(Fig. 21). In the tradition of Petramhan blason. the speaker breaks the wornan down into various constituent pans: "Here we have eyes so full of fervent love" (5): "[a] mouth where siknce seems to gather strength" (9): "the head . . . borne so proudly high. 1 the sofi round cheek" (1 3- 14). However. juxtaposed with the extemal descriptions of her highborne head and her cheek "spiendid in its bloom." are the suggestions of the chumings of an inward existence: 'Truc courage rises thro' the brilliant cye. / And grcat

l6 For a mmdetailcd disassicm of the links between &a& and &sire in Rp-Rapàaclite art. as vicwed ihmigh a psychœnaiytic frame. Eiizabetb Bden's text. Ovcr Her Deod Body: Dath. Fmtninity. und the Artthetic. is worth coasulting. resolve cornes flashing thro' the gloom" (15-16). The woman is not merely a pretty face. but a figure with strength and pride.

Mary Ann hane argues that "for the fernale spectator the= is a cenain over- presence of the image-she is the image. . .[as] woman's experiences make it vinuaily impossible for her to preserve a distance fiom her body or adopt the position of a fetishist"

(224). ïhere appears to be an niferred alliance between the speaker and the image of the woman present in the poem which in the context of Doane's disfussion of a pndered gaze based on a mode1 of proximity and distance. suggsts to me that the speaker is a female spectator/na.~ator.The speaker in "On a Portrait" scems much more attentive to

"the Lady's soul," for which the art kt in Siddal's pem says he bbcare[s]not." Cameron's narrator/observer is constantly aware of the woman's silence. At the end of the first stanza. she asks. "[wlherein the music of thy voice doth lie?" (4). The speaker then remarks upon the mouth of the image in stanza three. noting it looks as though the wornan is poised to speak: ". . . silence seerns to gather strength 1 From lips so gently closed (9-

10). What 1 fmd most rernarkabie is the speaker's desire to refrain from attempting a defmitive reading of the painting kfore her, which is pmistently reinforced through the use of conditional verbial and adverbial forms: "one could olmost prove 1 That Earth had loved her favourite over much" (7). and in the foilowing stanza. "üps [arc] so gently closed that olmosr say . . ." (10) (emphasis my own). The speaker thus nsists reading the woman merely as a fetiskd object of desire. as the male pamtcr did m his creation of the image. Anci, irnponantly. wMe the woman in the picturc lacks a voice. the speaker does not presume to tak for her. It is clear £rom the final stanza that the portrait of the wornan is the product of a male imagination, much as the painter in Christina Rossetti's poem created the woman

"[nlot as she is. but as she fills his dreams," for it is not nature which has formed her beauty, but "Genius and love [that] have each fuüilled their part" (21). Most notably, a particular srandard of beauty ("al1 that we love best in classic an") is described in the fml line as having ken forcibly ''srmped for ever on the immonal face" (24). Just as the living model is reduced to a type, a model of Woman, her beauty is reconfgured to conform to a cultural standard of Beauty. The fernale observer sugpsts an inadequacy on the part of the male artist to reak that "mon than genius goes / To search the key-note of those melodies. / To fmd the depths of all those tragic woes" (20-1). Clearly then. the strength. pride and sorrow which the spectator has sensed about the portrait wornan are not present in the painting, but are. rather. the result of her own tenuous yet sensitive atternpt to imbue the subject with Me and character. which the male artist has obviously failed to do. She begs the "noble painter" to do the woman's Me as weii as her beauty justice in his an, dernanding that he "[t]une thy Song right and paht rare harmonies" (20).

Cameron's poem thus mounts a powerful--if subtle--critique against the kind of

"representational violence" enacted in the tendencies of artists iike Rossetti to "use the face" but mgkct the inner strength and spirit of his femak "~ubjects."'~

As Nicole Cooley points out in her own anaiysis of Cameron's life and works. entitled "Recovering the 'Sikm Image of Woman."' in an autobiopphical xnse, it is

If The tcrm 'ïcpescntatid vidcoa" canes frclm Elizabtth Bronfen's book, &cr Hcr Ded Body: Dea~h. Fmininity, ami the Aestheric." Brcmfen argues faihe inhemnt viderice "cngadcred by the mwe froin a mal body to a sip. .. .[in] diminisbing the material physicality of the mdel in favair cf an aileprical mading [of that mddcI]." fa "cffed in cach case is the subjectivity of cbe .. .waman . .. ber Myand ber pain" (49). In ahtr wards, Bdensees the transformation of a mal. bistaical wornan inio that "fictional coasinict" discusscd by Teresa de Laurctis. 'Wman.' as an inherrntly vident act. perhaps rather puuling that the woman in the poem is situated as an observer, rather than a producer. of paintings that are more faithfùl to the female subject and her inner existence. For while the woman m the poem ody appeals to the male artist to rune thy song right. and paht rare harmonies," Carneron herself actively strove to revcise or. at the very least. surpass Pre-Raphaelite representations of women as merely objects of extemal beauty in her own artistic creations. #en considered within the comext of the iast chaper's discussion. however. the speaker's appeal to the "noble painter," afier her prcvious critique of his artistic abilities. may be read as a funher sign of Carneron's own strategy of "stooping to conquer." as GehdJoseph has termed t: that strategy of feipd humiüty and inferiority Carneron employed in order to accomplish her split desires io subven aesthetic and gender convention, and still gain public success as an art photographer.

Although cenainiy prevaknt in her written work. Cameron's resistance to the Pre-

Raphaelite tendency to render vigorous women into merely beautifil objects of masculine fetishistic desire is more explicit ly cxpressed through her art photographs. A cornparat ive amlysis of several of Cameron's photographs of "Fair Women" with exemplary Pre-

Raphaelite pamtings will reveal some of the ways in which Cameron played with aesthetic and photographic convention in order to figure the ferninine differently.

Whik the Re-Raphaelites concemed t henwlves primarily with the out ward beaut y of their femak sitten. Julia Margaret Cameron expresscd again and agh, m ktten and diary entries, her desire to capture what she calkd the "irncr complexions" of her models.

As the photographic medium was unable to capture one's herworkings m the way that it could faiiffiily record one's extemal king. however, Carneron was forced to rely on a variety of conventions taken nom both the an and photopphy of the tirne in order to render visible the invisible. In her portrait photographs (consisting mostly of famous men), Camcron made creative use of focus and bghting in order to attempt to visually express the inner intellectual or creative "greatness" of such sitters as Te~ysonor Sir

Henry Taylor. In her an photopraphs of "Fair Women," Cameron suategicaily used posing, gesture, and facial expression in order to express and emphasize the strength. emotional complexity, and most of ail, the hurnanness of her subjects. thercby subvexting the tendencies of Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites to idealize and objecte women into one "self-same face" painted "over and over."

Even though photographie technology had vastly improved during Cameron's career. it still took several minutes of exposure tirne to crcate a successfÙ1 photo.

Therefore. objects in motion could not yet be captured with the kind of spontaneity that would be available to the photographer after Kodak's unveiling of an instant image process during the latter decades of the nineteenth cent~ry.'~Yet Cameron clcarly exened a great deal of effon in order to suggest motion and activity m her fernale subjec!~,as a mcans of visualiy assening women's place in an (and, perhaps. in culture) as more than silent. static, and passive objects: the bluniness of Rebecca (Fig. 10).for exampk. shows the visual result of arrested movement.

Figs 11 and 12 cxempw the ways in which Carneron and PR-Raphaclite pahten ke Rossetti make dinerent use of visuai and spatial positionhg of the womm within the artistic hme in order to express the strength and active apncy (or in the case of Rossetti.

------" Those inierested in Kodak's transfomation af tbe phaopphic icchndogy shadd cainilt Nami Rawnblum's M.A Hisiory of Women Phorographcrs. the helpless passivity) of the femaie figures depicted. In Rossetti's painting 'Ecce Ancilla

Domini!" (Fig. 11). the Vhgin Mary is relepated to the margins of the scene. postured in a

srnall, almost crouched position. as if she were txying to take up as Little space as possible,

whik the fomand faces of Cameron's women often domniate the entire fhme (Fig. 12).

The Pre-Raphaelite women gaze downward, to the si&. or on into the distance (Figs. 3.

11). as ifbowmg rneekly and demunly under the power of the anist's--and also the spectator's--eroticizmg bok. Carneron's women. on the other hd.are ofkn captured in the act of loohg. They seem to retum the spectator's gaze straight on. ofien wth an air of defmce (Fig~.S. 6.12.17).

Cameron's photos not only foreground the physical mobiüty and vitality of both her =al-life sitters and the fernale characters they were asked to ponray. but they also suggest a startling level of emotional and htelkctual complexity in these women.

Cameron's sensitivity to the inner emotioml existence of women is ofien frankly expressed upon the faces of the models in the photographs. who are depicted expcriencing a complex variety of sentiments. nom joy. to affectionate love, to sorrow, while her acknowledgement and emphasis of ferninine intellectual strcngth is conveyed through her use of artistic symboüsm. and through her choice of unconventional üterary. historical. or allegorical fernale figures known for their cognitive and creative powen. Fig. 13. for example, depicts Hypetia, who. accordhg to Debra N. Mancoff and Sylvia Wolf. was the daughter of Theon. a rrs~cctedrnathematician, and was hersclf a "brilliant lecturer on

Neoplatonist phikso phy." known for "hcr combinat ion of wisdom and bcauty" (230). while Fige 14 npments Zoe. a heroine of the Greek War of Independence. who. aAer the death of her father "during a Turkish attack on her homeiand. . . . [was] [tlransformed fkom a timid young girl into an articuiate orator, advocating resistance and revenp"

(233). Other admirable female figures featured in Carneron's repertoire of over 3.000 images include Sappho, the famous Greek pet of Lesbos. now considered a quintessential symbol of female creativity and desire, and Mnemosyne. the mother of all Muses. who. m

Cameron's rendering of her. was played by Pre-Raphaelite mode1 and artist, Marie

~partali.'~

While the contoned and fetishisticaliy over-exaggerated features of the Pre-

Raphaelite stumers deplete the humanness of the women depicted. the realness of

Cameron's sitten persists in her art photographs--not only because of the sense of motion or sentience she successfully captured. but kcause of her refusa1 to exaggerate the models' ruil ftatures, blur out fiaws, or touch up technical imperfections in her photos. even when dealing with ideal or fictional subjects. As she wrote to Sir Edward Ryan. " . .

[the blemishes and imperfections] must 1 think rernain. 1 could have touched them out but 1 am the only photographer who always issues untouched photographs and artists for this reason amongst othen value my photographs" (qtd in Gemsheim 75). Thus. both due to what Picm Bourdieu cak the "reality effect" that is inherently attached to the documentary medium of photography, and due to a deliberaie an effort on Cameron's part either to kave pre-existing flaws or. in some cases, even to play up imperfections by tousling her subjects' hair (Fig. IS), or forcibly adding scratches and bkmishes to the plates (Fig. 16). the raw humanness never truiy disappears ftom either her idyllic or t ypical images.

l9 Accading to Elisabeth Bden. "[ais matber of Lbe muses. Mnemosyne is dso the mdber af the source of ptic autbaity iiself and as such the point duiginatim to be invdved in the poltic ad' (363). Cameron's efforts to counter the tendency of photopphy to render its fernale subjects inen. stat ic. and. in a manner of speaking. dead. seem to have succeeded, as many viewers have found her images to bc both startlingly real and surprisingly alive?' Sir John

Herschel for exarnple, wrote Cameron a letter after viewmg her work at an exhiil in

1866 to express his wonder at her ability to vivify the subjects she captured with the camera: "That head of the 'Mountain Nyrnph, Sweet Liberty'. . . is reaUy a most astonishing piece of high relief." he told her. "She is absolutely alive and thrusting out her head from the paper into the air" (qtd m Weaver 157) (Fig. 17).

My suggestion that Cameron resisted the prevailing tendencies of Pre-Raphaelite art to transfonn women into t ypified objects of the desiring masculine gaze may appear romewhat questionable when one notes that the women in CameronTsphotographs are mly. if ever. observed as themselves. outside the fictional rok they are made to play in the tableaux. while the male subjects tend to appear most prominently in her series of

"real-Me" portraits. Often. it is only because of the photos' accompanying captions that

Cameron's fictional photographs of Marys. mothers, and angels rnay be distinguished nom her portraits of sitters such as the "real-He" mother of Virginia Woolf. Julia Duckwonh

(née Jackson) (Figs. 18,19). Cenainly. one may argue that such a fact may once again point to Cameron's tendency to ideah her fernale subjects and transform them into degorical symbols. However. a contrary readmg which is congruent wiih my prcvious chaper's discussion of the "womanliness masquerade" is that these photographs might

a Rdand Bhcsbas sugeicsted tbat the act d phdograpby bringr abat a kinâ ddcahof the subject. while André Bazin describes phdography as an art that "'embalms tirne. rexruing it sirnply from its prqJer corruption" (qtd in Sbawcross 86). indicate a critique. on Cameron's part. of Victorian gender ideology--a critique which is expressed through an awareness. and consequent exposure of the contnved. perforrnative nature of those socially prescribed roles which she and her fernaie "Idyk of Real Me" were called upon to play on the Victorian cultural "stage" of everyday Me. In other words, afier the mersuggested by Rivitre's "masquerade" thesis. Cameron recopized women and masquerade to be essentially one and the same. Such a contention proves particularly compelüng when analysing photographs like Dora as the BridelMrs. Ewan

Cameron (Fig. 8).or Mrs. Duckworth ar Julia Jackson (not figured here). the captions of which actualiy seem to encourage the viewer to note the perfotmative aspect of the women depicted within the frarnes.

The sombre. almost troubled looks on the faces of rnany of Carneron's fernale subjects (for exarnple. Christabel. Fig. 20). who are most ofien depicted paticipating in occasions or act ivit ies that were normaily considered fulfiüing and pyhl m the Me of a young Victorian woman. serve to funher problematize any reading of Cameron's work as unequivocaliy promoting the "Angel in the House" ideology. The modem viewer is kfi to conjecture whet her the women 's grimaces are "accident al" evidence of the ''rd-life" tedium experienced by the live models whorn Carneron pressed into posing for long durations before the camera. or whether such mehncholic expressions are a conscious. deliberatc statement on Cameron 's part about women's--and indeed her own-fatigue with the constant role-phying they undenook every &y as wives. mothen-or. would-be professional photographers. * In emphasizing the subversive potential of Cameron's Me and art. however. one must not overlook the more conservative approaches to class. as weU as gender. we find niterated m bo th. Theoret ically and aesthetically speakmg .Cameron disdained the general tendencies in art and conventional photography to ignore the inner depths of a subject (panicularly a fernale subject) and focus sokly on the outer appearance. However. wveral critics have argued th. m some of her art photographs. Cameron actually visted upon her maie subjects the same bVepresentationalviolence" that befeli the fernale Pre-

Raphaeîite models. For exampk. in Wornen Artists und the Pre-Raphoelite Movement. Jan

Marsh and Pamela Gerrish NUMoffer the assessrnent that "Cameron's oeuvre shows that men could be generakd into a preferred type the same way as her male contemporaries liked to mcrge women into a mode1 of wornanhood; the search m her pictures for a heroic yet spiritual male yields the largest masculine presence to be found in the Pre-Raphaeiite work of women" (1 82). In an interesting nvenal of the conventional critical focus on

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's obsession with his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, Victoria C. Olsen has also aqued that Cameron uscd hcr husband Charles' "seif-same face over and over" as the image of iâeal masculinity. In her essay "IdyUs of Real Life." Olsen notes how Cameron's photo of "the dazed. closed-eyed Merlin [who] was modeiled by [her] husband Charles. . . explicitly irnmobilizes him. blinds hh. and controis how he is xen" in the same rnanner

Siddal was often rendered in Rossetti's paintings (Fig. 21) (378).

In her tireless pursuit of the perfect image. it has also ken said that Cameron ofien tended to ignore the discomfon of her d-life subkcts. This tendency towards ncgkct is evident in the diary entries of several of the modcls who were pmsed hto sitting for Mn. CameronTspictures. A sitter known only as the Lady Amateur. for example. described a

&y of posing in Cameron's glass house as a day of torture:

The studio was very untidy and very uncornfortable. The exposure began. A minute went over and 1 felt as if 1 must scream another minute, and the sensation was as if my eyes were coming out of my head: a third. and the back of my neck appeared to be affiicted with palsy: a founh. and the crown. which was too large began to slip down my forehead: a fifth-but here 1 utterly broke down . . . (qtd in Hinton 35).

Another sitter called Cameron 'heither mystenous nor awe-inspiring, but just a kind. exacting though knevolent. tyrant." who. very much like the wicked witch hmthe

Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. could be found

. . . lying in wait some fine mornhg at her garden gate for the young ones passing down the road on their way to Fhgford or to the sands of Freshwater Bay. "She's coming! She'U catch one of us!" And sure enough an arm would intcrcept the passage of some luckkss wight, and. bribcd by jars of prescrve [sic] or other tooihrome dainty the victim was led away to spnd the sumy houn posing in the studio (qtd in Hinton 36).

In pehps the wont case scenario that foregrounds not only the ideological violence involved in the process of changing a real wornan into an allegorical image. but the actual physical violence often involved in both Cameron's technique of photo-taking. and in nineteenth-century anistic and photographic practices at their most extreme. Cameron was rumoured to have locked her adopted daughter Cyliena Wilson into a closet in ordcr to create on the face of her mode1 a more believable expression of Despair. " This particular anecdote fin& an interesting correiative in the infamous story of Elizabeth Siddal and her near-fatal sitting as Ophelia for PreRaphaelite painter John Everett Milhis. Accordhg to

William Michael Rossetti,

" Due to the exmmly lengrhy expure cime deariy pbaographs. sc.im pàotopphers werr knmto use mial btaccs (&ai denloolrcd ratber like tutu= &vices) to forcibly bdd Lhc head of the pôotograpbic subjcct uprigtit and prfectly still. See Sumn Lalvani's book Photography, Vision and the Ptodvcrion of Modern Bdies famm &rails. MWfound an 'old and &y' antique dress. 'al flowered over in silver embroidery' which Lizw wore whik lfig m a thbath full of water kept warm by an arrangement of oil lamps buming undemeath. Then, 'jus as the picture was nearly finished. the lamps went out unnoticed by the artist. who was so intently absorbed in his work that he thought of nothing else. and the poor lady kep floating in the cold water till she was quite benumbed. She herself never complained of this . . . but the rcsult was she contacted a severe colci' (qtd in Pre-Ruphelire Sisterhood 31).

Cameron not only often negkcted to notice the personal weli-king of her fernale

sitters: but. in her &sire to "mst afl Beauty" and imbue the rdwith elements of the

ideal, she has ken char@ with taking an escapist. rather thsocially nsponsible approach to class distinctions in her life and her art. While the so-called social

investigaton were kginning to probe into the "heart of darimess" of Britain's urban

slumlands. employing the camera to document the appalling States of these areas and their

impoverished inhabitants. Cameron removed the ~ttingsof her photographs to those chronologkaily or geographically distanced topoii so regularly presented in the an.

Literature. and poetry of the period, and dressed her worhg-ckss servants and local

peasants (whom she patroniringly dechred in her autobiography to be "very handsome") as queens and Marys. kfore exploit ing them for t heu aesthet ic value by pressing them

mto service in the creation of ehborate tableau-vivants-style images. These images were

then circulated for the viewing pkasure of her bourgeois hiends. in the form of fancy

albums, or. later. for those members of the consuming pubüc-at-large wealthy cnough to

purchase her hi@-priced work.

If. as I have herein suggested. Cameron held. and exhibited--thou& subtly--a

rcsistance to prcvaiüng ideologies of gender and rcpresentation. why is her approach to chss in her photopph of "Fair Women" scemingly so evasive and so unself-critical? The apparent contradiction bctween Cameron's subversive approach to Victorian constructions of gender and her more conservative or "bourgeois" treatment of class has been linked to a number of sources by critics, including Carneron's split desires to be both popular and avant-garde, or her belief in the levehg capabilities of art and beauty."

However. 1 wish to suggest that this contradiction is more Nely the result of Cameron's attempts to negotiate between two conflict ing--though sometimes overlapping--schools of thought she found heneif hmersed in âaily, as both the close friend and professional panncr of Aked Lord Te~yson.who was at the forefront of a group of "subversive conservatives" at Cambridge in the 1830s. biown as The Apostles. and as the wife of

Charles Hay Cameron, a prominent Benthamite philosopher?3 Above dl. such contradictions funher emphasize the impossibility of applying dichotomous thinking to the

Me and works of a wornan who, in many ways. ''deficd description."

Sn In "ldylls d Real Life." for example. Victoria C. Olscn speaks of hm"Camcrm's work can be =ad as an endmemeni d Victorian kiiefs in the ciass-transending and transfomaiive versdlwe and art" (385). Accordhg io Isobel Armstrong. Tennyson was at the forefroni dacorcric known as the Cambridge Aptles during the 1830s whae primary objectives wcre to cnact "a transfocmaticm of the mind and the country." and. "thrai gh a ~educationd the whde sacid imagination in the dcep powers of myrh." regain "a lat sense of aganic unity" that rapid ecununic. social. and pditical cbang wmsecn io have disnipted in Victaian Britain (31.55-6). Caisidcnng Camem's close rclatiaship 10 Tcnnysm. and Lhe pranirwace of allegarical and typdogical subjects in ber art pbotographs. it is na surprishg Lhat critics Iike Victaia C. Oisen. and Constancc Relihan have aiigned Camem primarily with Tennysrni and the caascwative "inicllectud fmticm" fran which he developed. However. Lhcrr arc scvcral points at whicb 1ihialt Camrcm's omi idcdogy. peniculariy ber approech to class. divcrgs fniai that of tbc Aptles-the mast obviais aae king Camem's active invdvcmcnt in pditical and ecaiomic causes. Armsuriag writcs Qat, althatgb the Apaatles sm@t to transfarm 'the mind aad the carnuy." they did na advocate dimct pditical actioo as a wans dbnngng abat that &an#. Camrm cm the dhcr band. was mported to have headed up a relief campa@ fasuffenrs of the Gxeat Patato Famiae in hldad also adopcd several childxcn after ber awn had gmwn. Such acts of bumanitarianisrn rnay indicatc tbat C~mrrcm sbdwith ber husband. Cbarlcs. a brlief in the egalitarian tcaching~of tbe Benthamite philasopby. Faa similar. but more &veloped discussiai of Camem's parâdonicd appmxh to chss, Jcnnifcr Ptarson Yamashiro's essay "THE LADY VAXiSHES!': Mrs. Cameron ''Perfomed" on the LmTwentieth-Century Cu lt ural Stage

"1 have a smiling face. she ssid, 1 have a jest for aU 1 meet. 1 have a garland for my head And ail its flowers are sweet, .* And so you call me gay, she said [ . . . .]

But in your bitter world. she said, Face-joy's a costly mask to Wear; 'Tis bought with panes long nourishèd. And rounded to despair: Griefs eamcst rnakes life's play, she said."

Elizabeth Borretr Browning, fiom "The Mask."

"No. this is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is monaL You corne when you cmand leave when you must. The show is conthuous. Good- night !"

Robertson Davies

If ubiquky is any indication of an art kt's celebrity status. it would appear rhat. in the twentieth century, Julia Margaret Cameron seerns to have fmaiiy gained the levcl of critical acclairn and social attention for ber work which she so desperately sought, but, for the most part. did not receive in her own lifetime. Afier over a century of vhual obscunty. several of Cameron's images cm now be spotted pcing the coven of numerous stylish

books. and many have been transfonned hto posters. greeting cards. and postcards. At

any given time, at least one exhibition of Cameron's work may be found making ts way

fkom gaiiery to museum across North Amerka and Bntain--the iatest being an intensive

study of Cameron's ptiotographs of women. entitled "Julia Margaret Cameron's Wornen."

which comrnenced on September 19. 1998 at the Art Institute of Chicago. ancl, at the time of this thesis's publication. is expected to travel to the Museum of Modem An. New York

(27 January-4 May 1999). and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (27 August-30

November 1999).

Along with aU the sudden popularity of Cameron's photographs has corne an intcrcst in the woman herself. In a sornewhat ironic reversal of roles, Cameron. once considered one of the most pre-eminent practitionen of Victorian photography, has been taken from her place of hidden prominence khind the camera and made to pose as a central object of intrigue and interest. not only for a numkr of twentieth-century feminist scholan across the disciplines. but for several fiction writen. and. most recently. a contemporary film-rnaker. However. as 1 mentioned briefly in the introduction. while critics have ken successful thus far in their crusades to recuperate the integrity of

Cameron 's photopphs. and to ensure that they be taken seriously and valued as fme art. few have deigned to give the memory of the artist the same amount of respect and crcdibility.

It is the subject of this next and fmal chaper to examine the transformation of Juiia

Margaret Cameron from subject of the photographie gaze in Victorian Engknd to its aesthetic object of fascination in Bntain and North Arnerica at the end of this century. My primary concem here is with the potential "representational violence" that such a transformation may have incurred upon the memory of a wornan mist who. ironically, often took it upon herseif to counter such violence of representation in her own depictions of Victorian women. To achieve this end. 1 wiii endeavour to assess not only how the figure of Julia Margaret Cameron has been taken up by three modem artists--Viqinia

Woolf. Ly~eTRISS, and Sandra Goldbacher--but for what reason. and to what end

Cameron has ken changed fkom a mlwoman to a somewhat farcical character. Before begini-iing this analysis. however. it is important to point out that it is not the intem of this chapter to funher any such "representational violence" on the memory of a clearly detemined. capable. vigorous and taiented woman. by defhg her as sokly a passive. helpless b'victirn"of violence-4deological. representational. or othemise. On the contrary, as in the previous chapten. it is my desire to continue to emphasizc Cameron's agency in the economies of gender and self representation. Thus, while 1 am suggesting that

Cameron's image has falien prey to a kind of "representational vioknce" at the han& of twentieth-century artists. it is important that 1 once again assen Cameron's own participation in the creation and perpetuation of her own image. That is. if Julia Margaret

Cameron has ken--and continues to be--constructed in a particular manner (whether as the ideal bourgeois woman or as the wildly eccentric amateur photographer), it is because she herself. in some part. contributed to that very construction. through the careful orchestration of her public autobiography. her pomait photopph, and indeed. her own social persona, usine a dehirate performance of the "masquerade of womanliness" m the public eye. The comedic play. Freshwater. by Vkginia Woolf, Cameron's great-niece. is the earliest. if not the most famous of three known literary works to be written specifically about Julia Margant Cameron in the twemkth century. Wntten in 1928 and performed for the fïrst time m 1935 at Vanessa Beli's famous London studio, Freshwater provides a humourous--though ofien scathingly critical--look at the eccentricities and hconpencies of Julia Margaret Cameron and her Victorian contemporaries. Usine established literary conventions of irony and parody. Woolfcrcates depictions of such eminent Victorians as

George Frederick Watts, Alned Lord Tennyson. and even Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, that are at once outrageously overdone (to the point of caricature) and refreshingly honest and real.

In her depictions of fdmous nineteenth-century stage actress. EUen Teny. and her short. tumultuous marriage to George Frcderick Watts. Woolf shows a profound understanding. and a deep sympathy. not ody for Terry. but for many womcn who. ke

Woolf, and like "Great-Aunt Julia." found themselves forced into certain unrealistic or unnatural bbp~~~"by male artists. husbands. or the culture at large. Like Cameron's photographs of "Fair Women." Eiien Terry's mpnse to the question of what her name is. posed by a prospective suitor unaware of her married status. reveals the character '+as weii as the playhght's--awareness of. and discontent with. women's objectifed status in sri (or art photognphy). and more generaliy, in patriarchal culture:

John: "My name's Craig. Lieutenant John Craig of Hcr Majcsty's Navy." Nelk "And my narne is Mn. George Frcderick Watts." John: "But baven't you got another?" NeU: "Oh plenty! Sometirnes I'm Modesty. Sometimes 1 am Poetry. Somctimcs 1 am Chastity. Sometirnes, generally before breakfast, 1 am rnerely Neii." John: "1 like NeU best." Nell: bbWefl,that's unlucky, because today I'm Modcsty. . . . Dear me. 1 suppose I'm an abandoned wretch. Everyone says how proud 1 ought to be. Think of hanging in the Tate Gallery for ever and ever--what an honour for a young wornan like me! Only--isn't it awful--1 like swirnrning." John: "And sitthg on a rock, NeIl?" Nek "We& it's better than that awful model's throne . . ." (26-27).

Despite her apparent understanding for women's issues. and her âeep interest in the life and works of her eccentric great aunt. however. VbgHua Wooif's characterization of Julia Margaret Cameron in Freshwter proves flat and unsympathetic when cornpared to her puthos-filkd depiction of Terry in the play. or even to the laudatory description of

Carneron pmented by Woolf only theyean earlier. in her introduction to a published version of Carneron's photographs. For in Freshwater, the woman whom Woolf had once descnbed as generous. vigorous. and irnmensely taknted. is reduced to a caricatured performance-a character so monomaniacal in punuit of her art that she wiii stop at nothhg short of murder (albeit of the family's "pet" turkey) in order to fonvard her photographie cause:

Mrs. C: "[Nlow you're the Muse. But the Muse must have wings. [Mn. C. rummages frantically in a chest. She hgsout various garments on the floor.] Towels. sheets. pyjamas. trousen. dressing pwns. braces--braces but no wings. Trousers but no wings. What a satire upon modem lifé! Braces but no wings! [Mn. C. eoes to the door and shouts:] Wings! Wings! Wings! What d'you Say. Mary. There are no wmgs? Then kill the turkey!" . . . . EUen: "Oh. Mn. Carneron. have you kiUed the turkey? And 1 was so fond of that bùd." Mn. C.: ''The turkey is happy. Ekn. The turkey has kcome part and parcel of my immonal an. Now. Ekn. Mount this chair. Throw your arms out. Look upwards" (14).

In the final scene of the play. Mn. Cameron shows krself to be an exaggerated version of the kind of "benevolent though exacting tyrant" spoken of by a young Annie Thackefay

Ritchie. Whcn ït is thought that young EUen has drowncd hcrself in the sca. Cameron mourns the loss of her favourite model, but has little cares for the weil-being of the girl

henelf: "Mn. C.: 'Oh but this is awfbl! The girl's dead and where am 1 to ptanother

model for the Muse? Are you sure. Sipor, that she's quite dead? Not a spark of Me kft in

her? Couldn't something k done to revive her? Brandy--where's the brandy?"' (40).

Why Wooif's ~thlesdysat mcahnd decidedly hollo w--portraya1 of Julia

Margaret Carneron and her feUow Freshwater eccentrics? As 1 have previously suggested.

such depictions of the famous fme art photographer is. in part. Cameron's own doing:

Cameron played the role of the bumbhg amateur so convincingly. and emphasized her ''ferninine" de pendenc y and inferiorit y so vigorously. that crit ics and biognphen cenainly

must have found it dfl~cuhto regard her as littk more than a fiighty. quaintly humorous

and surprûing ly chiid-like individual.

Another pmicularly compelling argument, offered by prominent Victorianist

Isokl Armstrong in her own search for the source of a cont inuous twentiet h-century

devaluation of Victorian pets and their petry, is that such over-blown rcpresentations of

Carneron and her feilow Victorians rnay be directly nhted to the Modemist movement-a

movement in which Virginia Woolf phyed a central part. According to Armstrong.

Modemism's primas, agenda was to mark a "radical break with the pst"--the pst. of

course. king the epoch directly precedmg it: the Victorian period. Thus. central to the

proccss of self-definition of the Modemist movement and the self-definition of its artistic

disciples, was the necessary disavow al of. and dissociation from, those "Other" Vic t orians.

In the literary domah. the most cornrnon strategy of dissociation used by Modernist writen to "rcpress whatever . . . relations the Victorians [~emed]to bear to twentieth- century writhg" (1). and to their own work. involved the use of ironic wit and humour to klittle, mock. or at the very least. disrredit their ostensibly stodgy Victorian

grandparents. Armstrong provides several tellinp examples of this process of writerly

disavo wal: m James Joyce's epic Modemist novel Ulysses. for example, Aified Lord

Tennyson. the Poet Laureate of the Vktorian Age. becornes 'bwn Tennyson, gentleman pet." and amateur tennis phyer. S Unüarly. in Virginia Woolf s work Orlondo. Woolf is seen trying to dissociate herself hmthe Victorians by critiquing ''the eroticisms and the

euphemisms of bourgeois capitalism and its ideology. its inordinate excases and

concealrnents." using the image of a "voluptuous . . . stuffed sofa." (1 ).

Considering that Freshwater was written expressly for the enjoyrnent of that

famous Modemist coterie. the Bloomsbury group. Armstrong's thesis of "Modernist

Reprcssion" proviâes a useful and enlightening frame through which to view Wooif's play.

Further. it does much to help expiain the discrepancy ktween Wooif's sympathetic take

on Cameron in Famous Men and Fair Women. and her more critical approach to her great-aunt in Freshwater.

t

However probkmat ic it s reprexntat ion of Cameron. Woolf's play has undou btedly

set the precedent for the ways in which critics and uwiten ake have approached Julia

Margaret Cameron throuphout the twentieth century. Even in the last decades of the

1990s. the supposeci age of the Post-Modem. evidence of Woolf's influence over the cuhural construction of the woman photographer continues to sufice: the most ment exampk is Lynne Tniss's 1997 noveL Tennyson's Gif. which, like Wooifs Freshwater. undenalces to dcpict Mn. Cameron and her Freshwater artistic coterie in a cornical. and ofien critical. light. Using an arnusingly effective "Wonderhnd" intenext. Truss likens Cameron and the painten. pets, phrenologists and actors who gather around her at Dimbola Lodge. to the madcap characters found nihabithg Lewis Carrel's classic story of the little girl who falls down the rabbit hole. In the novel's openine scene. for example. Cameron's rnaid- servants are relieved ternporarily fiom their duties as photographie models. and commissioned by their Queen of Heans. Mrs. Cameron. to paint the red roses white:

A bhzmg dusty July afiemoon at Freshwata Bay: and up at Dimbola Lodge. with a glorious loud to-do. the household of Mrs. Julia Margmt Cameron is mostly out of doors, applying paint to the roses. They run around the ganien in the sunshine. holding up skins and aprons. andpstle on the path. For reasons they dare not inquire, the red roses must be painted white. If anyone asked them to guess. they would probably Say. 'Because it 's Wednesday?' 'You're splashhg me! ' 'Look out! ' 'We'll never get done in the!' 'What if she cornes and we're not fnished?' 'It will be off with our kads!' (3).

By making an explicit cornparison bet ween Cameron and that sometirnes knevolent. but often testy. and always exacting tyrant of Wonderland, the Queen of

Heans, it would appear that Tmss's approach to Julia Margaret Cameron is. afier the marner of Woolf. unsympathetic and primarily parodic. Cenainiy. it is evident throughout the novel that Truss. iike Woolf, nlishes in poking strategicaily vciled jabs at Cameron. paxticukrly at her eccentnc habits, and her notorious tendency to lose herseif in her art. and put her nkntless punuit of the perfect image bcfore the persona1 codon of the sundry aiends, neighboun, and servants whom she presscd into sitting before the camera.

In chapter two, Tmss mounts one such critique through the mouth of Charles Do-Do-

Dodgson. Cameron's photographing rivai. whose notorious bve of children makes him another primary target of Tmss's scathing one-linen in the text:

Back in Freshwater, outside Mm. Camcmn's house, Dodgson wonders what on eanh is ping on. . . . Perhaps Mn. Cameron has ordered her pssto be pamted green. so that it will look fresh and emerald from an upstairs window. Knowing of his fellow photographer's boundkss and rnisguided devotion to aesthetics. such lunatic set- dressing is certainly possible. Mn. Cameron is forever rnaking extravagant gestures in the cause of Art and Friendship. bth with capital letters. She is a bohernian (at the very word Dodgson shudders). with sisten of exceptionai beauty and rich husbands. She hails fiom Calcutta. and bums incense. While Dodgson takes picturcs only of gentlemen (and gentleman's chikiren). Mn. Cameron poses shogboys and servants for her dreamy Pre-Raphaelite concets. In short. in terms of exotic personaüty. she is quite off Dodgson's map. He has heard that she wiU sometimes run out of the house. Indian shawls irailing. stimng a cup of tea on ts saucer! Out of doors! If in London. she wiU do this on the stnet! And sometirnes. she gives away the photographs she takes, the act of a madwoman! (7).

Yet despite its simikrly comedic approach to the Freshwater coterie. and to the

Victorians in general, Tniss's representation of Julia Margaret in Tennyson's Gift nevenheless reveals itself to be rnarkedly dinerent fiom Woolfs ponrayal of her in

Freshwuter. Whde Woolf rcduces Cameron to a parodic caricature who~sole function is to provide comic relief in the play. Tmss takes great pains to "flesh" out the photographer's UUKr emotional and Urteilectual workings. much &er the manner of

Carneron herself, who went to great length to capture the "rare harmonies" of her sitten'

"her compkxions." A most effective exarnpk of Tniss's astute ability as a writer to vivq hcr fictional subjects. and to map out their imaginary crnotional landscapes in a believable and sympathetic manner. appem during a scene in the htter pan of the novel. wherein Mrs. Cameron and Tennyson share a panicularly personal moment m Julia's giass house. afier nishing there to escape an unexpected downpour and a disastrous dinner

Outside. in the garden. Julia caught up with AIfied Tcmyson. as the wind hshcd the trces above their ka&, and the rain feu on their faces. . . . "Alfrrd!" yelkd Julia above the wind. "It 's no good. Julia. My mhd is made up." "Alfred! " They could have gone on Wre this, but fortunately Julia thought of sheltering in the giass house, where at least they could hear each other speak. And so they entered Julia's hallowed place. where Alfred had never stepped before. and the conflicting emot ions Julia had dernanded nom Mr. Watts as Ulysses were as nothhg to the feelings now fightmg in her own breast like cross winds tearing at a sail. '4 can't klieve you would lave me. Alfred." she wailed. "Just becaux 1 have never spoken to you of my feelings, you must sureiy know what they are." "Julia. I think we should discuss this tomorrow. Or perhaps. even better. we should never discuss it at all. It pains me to see you like this!". . . . Julia looked around. There was something about the setting. She never thought she would see AIfred in her glass house. She had wanted it so much that it had nearly broken her hem. "Sit for me. Alfred." she said quktly. "You do not ben, rnadam!" "But 1 do. Alfred. 1 do. And each word you speak pins me a great deal more than it pains you . . ." (1 78).

Cenainly, it may k argued that bthTmss's wmewhat romantic elabrations of Julia's

Me (most panicukrly, her provocative reading of the nature of Cameron's relationship with Tennyson). and her inclusion of Cameron as a character in her fictional novel, rnay commit a kind of "representational violence" upnthe rnemory of Cameron. the historical figure. But even as her depiction blurs even funher the fme iine ktween fact and fiction. and betwcen Cameron the %al" historical king and her socially constnicted persona. as it transforms her from "a real body to a sign." 1 hesitate to caU Tmss's treaiment of

Cameron as inherently 4'vblent'' as the ones presented by Woolf, Gemsheirn or othen.

According to Elisabeth Bronfen. from whose own work 1 have brrowed the concept of 'breprescntationalviolence." a violent depktion is one that "efface[s] . . . the subjectivity of the . . . wornan. her body and her pain" (49). While Woolfs ponrayal of Cameron is completely devoid of any sense of interiority. Tmss's depiction offen glirnpses of a dceper and in Eome respects. âarker side of Cameron that critics like Helmut Gemsheim may have hinted at, but have tended to downplay or &&ct attention away from in th& insistent readinp of Cameron as the flighty, ferninine amateur. With the aid of an omniscient narrative perspective. the raider of TNSS'Smvel is able to penetrate the light- med,eccentric outer rnask of Mrs. Cameron and gain cornpeiiing (if highiy conjectural) bight into Cameron's doubts about her abilities. as weii as her potential for future success, her fem of faihre and rejection. and her desires for acceptance, for success, and for a open and profound relationship with Tennyson: insight that has been notably absent hmvÿiually every nprcstntation of the woman photoppher (be t "factual" biography or comical fiction) to have appeared in the last century. As a result. like Cameron's photopph of the Mountain Nyrnph. whom Herschel declared to be so startlingly alive she seemed to k "thrusthg out her head fiom the paper into the air." Julia Margaret Cameron emerges from the pages of Tennyson's Gift as a generous. sympathetic. touchingly kind. but deeply complex individual. whom only those who naiiy knew the woman (before she kcame a caricature) could ver@ that she was in "real Me." *

Although Julia Margaret Cameron's presence in the 1998 fh. The Governess. is more subtle. and. thus. perhapr kss visible to those not farniliar with either the Victorian woman photographer or her ethereal photographs. it is nonethekss unrnistakeable. &hg the most ment "'text" to take Cameron as its subject. a shori analysis of this fhmerits inclusion here.

The main action of The Governers revolves around a young Victorian woman namcd Rosh (pkyed by British acmss Minnie Driver), a Scphardic Jcw from London's

East End. who is forced to sek employment der the death of her father lcaves then once afiluent family destitute. Posing as a Christian by changinp her name to Mary Blackchurch, she gains employrnent as a governess with a wealthy Myon the remote

Isle of Skye. Ahhough t pays decently, the govemess position is anything but ideal. Mn.

Cavendish. her femak employer, is vapid and moody. and her wayward and sadistic Young charge. Clementina (whose nanr, incidentaily. may be an indmct nod on the part of the film-maker to another fore-mother of photography. Lady Ckmentina Hawardan). delights in driving her nanny to distraction by hocking her heel incessantly against the desk and sneakmg dead mice into her bed. The only source of excitement and intrigue in the bnght. vibrant woman's Me is provided by her mistress's mysterious husband Charles. a xientist whom Rosina only catches momentarily glirnpses of through her window. coming and going from his private kboratory. Charles' secret project, Rosina discovers one aftemoon after visiting his lab at her rnaster's invitation. is a rnarvellous process cakd photography. whereby pictures of reality are rcproduced ont0 paper. using a camera and light-sensitive chernicals. Like Henry Fox Talbot (the British scientist who. contemporaneously with

Jacques Louis Daguerre. discovered photography. but did not unveil his fmdings bcfore

Daguerre's own nvektion of the process to the world. thereby losing patent rights to the

âiscovery). Charles has almost rnastered the process of photo-taking. but cmot figure out how to stop the pictures fiom fading. Rosina. king the bright. ambitious girl that she is. acccpts Charles' offer to become his part-t ime laboratory assistant. Soon thereafrer.

Rosh discovers a fixative. and. in the styk of Jane Eyre. a love aair Liierally "develops" between employer and employee.

Despite their passion for photography and for each other. Rosina and Charks clearly have very divergent ideas about the new medium and its uses. In several renes. the director. Sandra Goldbacher, mgeniously uscs her characten to literalize the two sidcs of the Victorian &bate on photography. with Charks standing in for Fox Talbot and other

amateur photographen of the Realist school. and RosinaMary Blackchurch as a

Cameronesque fine art photographer. "You can create such beauty." Rosh nmarks. as

she gazes at a set of prints created by Charles. hanging to dry. Charles. the eternal

rationaliFt. has other opinions: "My aim." he tells her tenely, "is to make a faithful and

scientfi record of realit y. Miss Bhckchurch." "It 's ano ther means of expression." Miss

Blac kc hurch insist S. Exasperated. Charles replies that shc posscsses 'heit hcr a very

rational nor empirical point of view. but imaginative noneth~less."~

While the disclaimer at the end of the film States that the story is entirely fictitious

and that "any rescmblances the characten rnay have to any pnons hing or dead is entirely coincidental," the essence of Julia Margaret Camerow-hcr character. her aesthet k

principles, and her art--pervades this fh. Rosina's fascination with the medium. her insatiable desire to explore its potential to record "a keness of a humface" and

"capture the essence of people" refkcts Cameron's own aspirations to elevate photography to the status of fae art. and to capture the "inner complexions" of her sitters.

SUnihriy, the photopph entitled "a biblical study in the manner of Raphael." which she desires to make with Charles. and the photographs she iater creates in her own

24 Wbile an &n insigbtful and cmplling writer and dimcta, Goidbacher wcms a bit ta, rcIiant on ovcriy simplistic and pfoMematically essentidiscd dichdomies in ber nratioo of the characters. Raina and Charles. and the interocriclos betmcn them. ki the prccding passag. faexample, wbik Cbarles' canmcnts to Rosina cm hcr "imtid" point of'vicw play into and play ait to Lhe pdestrian vicwcr a sampie dtbc Viciaian debotes aht the hxtiaa â pbaograpby aai its potcntial as an art. fm. thcy ais0 nflect and prptuaie a sicxcotypical aligmmnt of the masculine position with ason on." "science," and '*empiricism."and dtbt feminirw with "'cmaiai." "bcauty." and "subjective exprpssivity." ûthcr vicwers bave faind that the film taks a similarly dichaamais approsch to race ard xeligim. Brian D. Johnson. fa example. secs Goldbscber's rcprescntatiais of Rosina and Charies as na dya means of playing ait an esscntialist battle of tbe sexes but also a dangeraisly mer-simplificd"duel bctwtcn Semitic passim and Christian rationaiiiy" (51). photographie studio m London. nveal a distinctly Cameronian anistic vision. both in their

"bazy" style and their allegorical and mythcal content.

This film is of panicular Ïnterest. not 0n.i~because of its unique treatment of

photopphic history. and its subtle rcferences to Cameron's Me and art. but for the ways

in which it. like many of Cameron's photographs. subvens the traditional visual economy

of "male/subject" and "femaWobject." Not only is the Nm the product of a female look

(the look king that of dinctor Sandra Goklbacher). but it celebrates (heterosexual)

women's power over. and plcasum derived fkom the act of looking. At moments.

cenainly. the camera lingers fetishistically over Rosina's (and by extension. Driver's) face

and body. after the mmrof the ckssk M described by Laura Mulvey in her essay on

"Visual Pleasure and Nanative Cinema." Nevenheless. urûike the narrative f~ Mulvey

analyzcs. which place women as "to-k-looked-at" objects of a masculinised fümc and

spectatorial gaze in the cinematic hme. in Goidbacher's fh Rosina is fîgured as the main

protagonist. through whose eyes the fh's vicwen bothfiguruiively, and through the

strategic use of Nmic focaibation, ofien literully see the narrative action. The

"maldsu bject," "fernaldobject " dic hotomy is funher bro ken do wn through the

replacement of the more conventional scenes of femaie nudity with a visuai exploration of

the nude male form. Thus. as Brian D. Johnson points out in his rcview of the fh for

Maclean's magazine. 'Wis is one of those rare movks with more male than fernale nudity"

(5 1). Goldbacher 's subversion of the traditional Nmic visual economy. enacteci both through her use of an active femak protagonist, and hcr own appropriation of the

masculine gaze as a female film-makcr making a film about women looking. is funher reflected m Rosina's symbolic theft of both her employer's camera. and a nude image of

Charles. posed Christ-W

Goldbacher's film offers a great deal of promise to Carneron schokrs such as myself, who wish to recuperate the integrity of her reputation. which has. until ncently, been ahost completely undenshed. However. such positive revaluationç of Cameron. her He. and her m. will nad to k mon direct in their rcference to the pioncer art photographer. if we are to alter the social construction of Julia Margarct Carneron. Mike

Weaver suggests that "then was nothiiig pseudonymous about Julia Margaret Cameron."

In future. it is my hop that artists ke Sandra Goldbacher will k similarly explicit in their praise of Mn. Cameron and hcr photographs. CODA

As was pointed out in the introductory chapter. this thesis takes ts cues boom many previous critics and their studies of the He and art of Victorian art photoppher,

Julia Margaret Cameron. But while my own work has been mcessariiy infhenced and infôrmed by such notabk scholars as Deborah Cherry. Carol Mavor. and Pamela Genish

NUM--odyto name a few--there have ken many moments during this endcavour when 1 have found myselfmanoeuvring across uncharteci temtory alone. and without any phor critical footsteps to foiiow. It seem that previous critics have ben so concerned with

Carneron's art photographs. and most often. her "IdyUs" photographs, that they have not ody lefi negkcted a vast canon of fascinating studies of 'Tau Women." but they have also forgotten Cameron's talents as a writer. tmlator. and pet. 1 experienced a simiiar problem in locathg xcondary materials for the texts in Chapter Three. which take Julia

Margaret Cameron more as an aesthetic object than as a photopphhg subject . This paucity of scholarly material is more understandable for Truss's novel and Goldbacher's movie. due to the rektively ncent rekase dates of both these tcxts--kss so for Virginia

Woolf's farcical play. Freshurer, which. surprishgly cnough. does not appcar to have ken closely studied in an academic context since it was fmt perfomd in the 1930s.

My work thus attempts not only to fd in several discemible gaps in contemporary work on Julia Margarct Cameron. but to broaden the context within which scholan regard her life and her m. Fig. 1. ,ewis Carroll, Julia Mmguret Cameron und her Sons, Charles and Henry,

Fig. 2. Henry Herschel Camcroq Portrait @Julia Mmguret Camerori, 1870. Fig. 3. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 73ie Roseleaf, 1870

Fig. 4. Julia Margaret Cameron, Pre-Rqphhuelife SM,1 870. Fig. 5. Julia Margarec Cameron, L 'ir~corona!a.Ca. 1865

-- Fig. 6. Julia Margaret Cameron, neShdm of rhe Cross, 1 86 5 Fig. 7. Juiia Margara Carneron, 75e Angel in the HOUSY. 187 1 Fig.

Fig. 9. Julia Margaret Carnaon. 7hr Passion Fheror rhe Gate. 1 867 Fig. 10. Julia Margaret Carneron, Rebecca, 1870. Fig. 11. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domine!, i850. Fig. I 2. Julia Margaret Cameron, Pomonu, 1 8 72. Fig. 13. Julia Margaret Camero~Hypotia, 1867. Fig. 14. Juiia Margarct Cameron, Za,Muid of Athens, 1866/7O. Fig. 1 S. Julia Margaret Carneron, ne Angel ar the Tomb, 1870.

Fig. 16. Julia Margaret Cameton, Ho& Fmily. 1864 Fe. 17. Julia Margaret Cameron, Mountaitl Nymph, Swee! Liberty, 1866. Fig. 18. Julia Margaret Cameron, Thr Eck, 1868. Fig. 19. Julia Margaret Cameron, Julia Jackson, l864/6S. Fig. 20. Julia Margaret Cameron, Christabef, 1866. Fig. 2 1. Julia Margaret Cameron, Vivien adMerlin, 1874. WORKS CITED

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Cameron, Henry Herschel. Portmit of Julia Marguret Cumeron, 1870. As nproduccd in Violet Hamihon. An~hof My Glass House. Seattle: U of Washington, 1996. Frontispiece.

Carneron. Julia Margaret. The Angel in the House, 187 1. As reproduced in Sylvia Wolf. Julia Margoret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yak UP. 1998. Plate 2.

. The Angel ut the Tomb. 1 870. As reproduced in Sylvia Wolf. Julia Murgoret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yak UP, 1998. Plate 47.

, Christabel. 1 866. As reproduced in Sylvia Wolf.Julia Morgaret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998. Plate 2 1.

. Dora os the BridelMrs. Ewan Cameron. 1869. As reproduced m Mikc Weaver. Julia Margaret Cameron, 1815-1 879. Boston: Littk Brown & Co.. 1984. Fie. 2.13.

. The Echo. 1868. As reproduced m S ylvia Wolf. Julia Margaret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yale üP, 1998. Plate 6.

. Hypatia, 1867. As nproduced in SyIvia Wolf.Julia Margaret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yale UP. 1998. Plate 34.

. Holy Family. 1864. As nproducd in Carol Mavor. Pleusures Tuken: Performances of Semality and Loss in Victorian Pliotograph. Durham: Du ke UP, 1995. Plate 12,

. Julia Jackson. 1864/65. As reproduced in Sylvia Woif, Julia Margaret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yale W.1998. Plate 54.

. L'lncoro~ta.Ca. 1865. AS reproduced in Mike Weaver. Julia Margoret Cameron. 18154879. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1984. Fig. 1.19

. Mountoin Nymph. Sweet Liberty. 1866. As nproduced in Mike Weaver. Julia Margaret Cameron. 1815-1 879. Boston: Little Brown & Co.. 1984. Fig. 3.60.

. The Passion Flower at the Gare. 1867. As nproduced in Sylvia Wolf.Julia Margaret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yale UP. 1998. Fie. 12.

. Pomo~.1872. As nproduced in Sylvia Wolf. Julia Margaret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998. Plate 18.

. Pre-Raphaelite Study. 1870. As nproduced in Sylvia Wolf.Julia Margaret Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yaie UP, 1998. Plate 25.

. Rebecca. 1870. As rcproduced m Mike Weaver. Juliu Murgaret Corneron. 1815-1879. Boston: Little Brown & Co.. 1984. Fig. 3.49.

. The Shadow of the Cross. 1865. As reproduced in Mike Weaver. Julia Margaret Cameron. 1815-1879. Boston: Little Brown & Co.. 1984. Fig. 1.9.

. Vivien and Merlin. 1874. As reproduced in Sylvia Wolf. Julia Margaret Corneron's Women. New Haven: Yale UP. 1998. Fie. 9.

. Zoe. Muid of Atkns. 1866/70. As reproduced in Sylvia Wolf. Julia Margorer Cameron's Women. New Haven: Yak W.1998. Plate 3.

Carroll, Lewis. Julia Marguret Cameron und krSom. Chorles and Henry. Ca. 1858. As rcproduced m Viokt Hamilton. An~lsof My GIass House. Seattle: U of Washington, 1996. Plate 3.

Kasëbier. Gertrude. Blessed An Thou Amoung Women! As rcpmduced in Camero Works: The Complete fllusnotions. 1903-1917, Koln: Taschen. 1997. Pg. 97. Rossetti, Dante GabrieL Ecce Ancilh Domine!, 1850. As nproduced m Jan Marsh, Pre- Raphelite Women. London: Phoenix Illustrated, 1998. Fie. 5.

. The Roseleaf, 1870. As reproduced in Jan Manh. Pre-Rophaelire Women. London: Phoenix Iilustrated. 1998. Fig. 27. "OR a PoaC8jt9' By Juiia Margaret Cameron

Oh, mystery of Beauty! who can tell Thy mighty inthence? who cm best desciy How secret. swifi. and subtle is the spcll Whenm the music of thy voice doth lie?

Here we have eyes so full of fervent love. That but for lids bthind which sorrow's touch Doth press and linger. one could almost prove That Earth had loved her favourite over rnuch.

A mouth where silence scerns to gather strength From lips so gently closed. that almost say. 'Ask not my story, lest you hear at length Of sorrows where sweet hope has lost its way.'

And yet the head is borne so proudly high. The soft round check. so splendid in its bloom. True courage rises thro' the brilliant eye. And great resolve cornes flashhg thro' the gloom.

Oh. noble painter! more than genius goes To search the key-notes of those melodies, To fmd the depths of al1 those tragic woes. Tune thy song right and pint rare harmonies.

Gcnius and love have each fulfiied their part. And both unite with force and equal pce. Whilst ail that we love best in classic art 1s stamped for ever on the imrnortal face.

(Dated Septemkr, 1875: published in Macmillan's Magazine, XXXIII (Febniary 1876). 372. Reprinted m Weaver. Julia Margaret Cameron. 1815-1879. 158). CURRICULUM W.AE

Ji11 Marie MacLachlan

University of Alberta

1999

Jfi Marie MacLachlan is a native of Edmonton, Albtrta. ~heeamed a B.A. with

Distinction in English and Linguistics hmthe University of Albena in 1997. kfore entering the English Master's program at the U of A in September of that same year. It was during her six year stint at the Univenity of Albma that JP not only discovered her passion for "di thgs Victorian." tut also for "lnga's Night Out." and for a golden clixior. hown to novices as Sfrongbow. but to Jill and hcr seasoned "Bkck Dog" fin& as

"inspiration on rap."

When she is not immersed in Victorian tripk-decken. battling "thesis monsters." or king the "conference paper coquette." JiU can k found enpying the outdoon: on foot. on skis. or (during Edmonton's disappointingly shon summer months), on wheels. She is cumntly awaiting word about possible acceptance into a Ph.d. program that is within

Canada and "near the sea."