Julia Margaret Cameron's 'fancy subjects': Photographic allegories of Victorian identity and empire

by Jeff Rosen

Overview

The Victorians admired Julia Margaret Cameron for her evocative photographic portraits of eminent men like Tennyson, Carlyle and Darwin. However, Cameron also made numerous photographs that she called 'Fancy subjects', depicting scenes from literature, personifications from classical mythology, and Biblical parables from the Old and New Testament. This book is the first comprehensive study of these works, examining Cameron's use of historical allegories and popular iconography to embed moral, intellectual and political narratives in her photographs. A work of cultural history as much as art history, this book examines cartoons from Punch and line drawings from the Illustrated London News, cabinet photographs and autotype prints, textiles and wall paper, book illustrations and lithographs from period folios, all as a way to contextualise the allegorical subjects that Cameron represented, revealing connections between her 'Fancy subjects' and popular debates about such topics as Biblical interpretation, democratic government and colonial expansion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784997908
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	06/16/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jeff Rosen is Vice President for Accreditation Relations at the Higher Learning Commission

Table of Contents

Introduction: Taking Cameron's 'fancy subjects' seriously 1. Saint-Pierre's exiles: myths of origins and heritage 2. Jowett's scriptures: the moral life and the state 3. Grote's Hellenism: Victorian Parnassus on the Isle of Wight 4. Byron's 'Beauties': national heroines and defenders of liberty 5. Overstone's 'Negromania': justness and justice at home and abroad 6. Tennyson's nationalism: epic and lyric in Idylls of the King 7. North's gardens: redemption and the return to origins Conclusion Index