Cameron and Eastlake: Opposed in Photographic Art
Originally written in February 2021 as a student in Laurie Dahlberg’s photo history course at Bard College, this essay utilizes Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, 1867 by Julia Margaret Cameron, along with more of Cameron’s photographs and background, to argue against Lady Elizabeth Eastlake’s 1857 assertion that photography will and could not ever be considered art. Cameron and Eastlake were individuals were involved in the 1800s development of photography, both in concept and technical knowledge.
There are many names synonymous with the invention and refinement of photography as art but Julia Margaret Cameron holds a significant place in the ranks of the forebearers of portrait art photography. Photography as art has been a contentious topic, especially in the realm of portrait photography in the mid to late 1800s. Lady Elizabeth Eastlake stated in her 1857 essay on photography, "But while ingenuity and industry--the efforts of hundreds working as one--has thus enlarged the scope of this new agent... has it gained in any artistic sense in like proportion? Our answer is not in the affirmative, nor is it possible...Far from holding up a mirror to nature, which is an assertion usually as triumphant as it is erroneous, it holds up that which, however beautiful, ingenious, and valuable in its powers of reflection, is yet subject to certain distortions and deficiencies for which there is no remedy.... For the more perfect you render an imperfect machine, the more must its imperfections come to light.” Julia Margaret Cameron was known for her evocative and emotional portraiture during a period where women were assumed to take care of traditional female household roles. She made prolific photographs and significant strides in the realm of photographic art, including many works which depict Julia Jackson. Jackson is the individual depicted in Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, 1867. Cameron’s portraits and use of the camera as an art medium strongly dispute Lady Elizabeth Eastlake’s belief that photography will not, nor could ever be, art.
Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, 1867. Julia Margaret Cameron.
Julia Margaret Cameron was born in June 1815, but did not start photographing until she was 48. Her camera was a gift from her daughter. Cameron’s privilege and association with various scientific and artistic circles at the time allowed her the opportunity to correspond with the foremost photographic innovators at the time, such as William Henry Fox Talbot, about her work with the wet-plate collodion process (Easby).
Wet-plate collodion was introduced to the world by Sir Frederick Archer in 1851. A time and labor intensive process, wet-plate collodion negatives offered an unparalleled quality of focus as well as the ability for reproduction of the positive images. The process established required the user to coat a glass plate the size of the camera with silver nitrate and silver iodide, leave the darkroom to expose the image, go back to the darkroom to pour pyrogallic acid the place to develop the negative image, fix the image in sodium thiosulfate or potassium cyanide, and then leave to dry. Each part of this process needed to take place in a room that was almost completely dark and within a few minutes of coating. The chemicals could not dry on the plate, or else the negative would be ruined. The result of this process was a very fragile glass negative (Britannica).
While Cameron frequently used the wet-plate collodion process, many of her positive prints were created using the albumen printing process. Cameron may have learned of this process from William Henry Fox Talbot, as he initially developed the concept of the albumen print in 1839 (Reilly). Blanquart-Evard greatly improved this process and released his findings in 1850. Presented by Louis Blanquart-Evard to the French Academy of Sciences in 1850, it became one of the most popular printing processes between 1855 and 1890 due to its ability to transfer a high level of detail from the negative to the paper substrate and coating (Stulick, et. al.).
Julia Margaret Cameron, born in India in 1815, started photographing at the age of 48 in England, and “she soon became obsessed with photography, reveling in its messy magic and focusing more on the overall effects of her pictures than on technical perfection,” (Cameron). Her signature styling of her models includes dark clothes on a dark background with pale-skinned subjects. While she was renowned for photographing important men of her day, she focused on making photographs exploring allegory, literary figures, and mythology (Easby). Cameron made photographs depicting the Virgin Mary, Galahad, and characters from Shakespearean plays such as Ophelia and Cordelia. In addition, and somewhat unorthodox at the time, she recorded the names of her subjects as well, such as The May Queen, May Prinsep, 1874.
The May Queen, May Prinsep, 1874. Julia Margaret Cameron.
She boldly declared her work as art during a time those such as Eastlake were condemning the use of photography in that way. Due to the lack of focus in her photographs, she garnered much support and much criticism from the amateur photography community at the time (Gernsheim, 68). In addition, her availability to hone her craft stemmed from her immense privilege. She was white, wealthy, and operated her camera without client expectations inherent to operating a commercial photography studio.
Her subject, Julia Jackson, was highly regarded for her beauty - modeling for artists such as George Frederick Watts and Edward Burne-Jones throughout her childhood. Also known as Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, Julia Jackson was Cameron’s beloved niece. This photograph was likely made after Jackson’s marriage to Herbert Duckworth in 1867 at age 21. Duckworth died three years later, in 1870. Jackson remarried to Sir Leslie Stephen in 1878, producing four children, two of whom were Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Woolf crafted the character Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse (1927), as sensitive, ever-searching, and beautiful. She is seen many times in Cameron’s work as they were very fond of each other. Many of Cameron’s most iconic works depict Jackson as the subject (Cox). Interestingly, I have found that many photographs by Cameron of Jackson show her as herself, not a character.
Lady Elizabeth Eastlake lived between 1809 and 1893, and was the wife of Sir Charles Eastlake. He was the first president of the Royal Photographic Society, one of the social circles popular for amateur photographers and artists at the time. Due to her similar wealthy and privileged status, she, like Julia Margaret Cameron, was also knowledgeable and educated in science and art. Interestingly, she was a popular subject of Hill and Adamson in Edinburgh, Scotland. They primarily used the calotype process, offering a similar soft focus effect that is a signature in Julia Margaret Cameron’s work (Coleman).
While Eastlake produced writings on different subjects, the quote is pulled from her sole essay on photography. A. D. Coleman writes about Eastlake, “However, she devotes herself at greatest length to the relationship between photography and art, and makes her own position clear: Though not an art form, then -- or in her anticipation -- even in the future, photography has its own great contribution to make to human knowledge, and the ability to push the visual arts away from literal description and toward territories more authentically their own.” In Eastlake’s quote, she offers a view that acknowledges the mysticism in photography of the day but also highlights the imperfections and power-dynamic of the craft, especially the “distortions and deficiencies to which there is no remedy.”
I find that Cameron’s approach to the photograph, a perceived disregard for the craft, and her selection of subjects that are within her close circle of friends and family, take the “distortions and deficiencies” that Eastlake mentions and uses them to her advantage to construct stories and themes in her photographic world. Cameron is less concerned with likeness than with the essence and the feeling which the photograph evokes.
In Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, 1867, perhaps Cameron’s storyline stems from the subject’s personal tragedy and subsequent resilience, all which Cameron would have known as the two were close. In this particular photograph, Cameron places her subject against a dark background, with small drip-like flowers around her. The close proximity of her subject, along with the subject’s wide eyes and slightly uplifted chin, all offer a strong, humble, and intimate depiction of Jackson. The rounded corners of the photograph allude to the Renaissance painting influence on Cameron’s artistic choices and the albumen toned print offers a softer tonal interaction with the final image. The white bonnet and collar, as well as a direct view of Jackson’s face, allow the viewer to truly see the subject. It directs the attention to Jackson’s eyes and slightly downturned mouth, all emotive details depicting the essence of Jackson’s lived experience.
These qualities of the photograph offer just enough distortion of the subject to pull the viewer into Cameron’s story and craft, a testament to the artist. Her use of a laborious medium combined with her emotional rendering of her subjects of both fact and fiction, exemplified in Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, 1867, decisively casts aside Eastlake’s assertion that photography cannot be art.
Sources
Cameron, Julia Margaret. "Mrs. Herbert Duckworth." The Art Institute of Chicago. Photography and Media. Web. 25 Feb. 2021. <https://www.artic.edu/artworks/157056/mrs-herbert-duckworth>.
Coleman, A. D. "Archive Authors: Lady Elizabeth Eastlake." The Photography Criticism CyberArchive. 2003. Web. 24 Feb. 2021.
Cox, Julian. "Mrs. Herbert Duckworth (Getty Museum)." The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. 1996. Web. 25 Feb. 2021.
Easby, Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey. “Julia Margaret Cameron, Mrs. Herbert Duckworth.” Smarthistory, smarthistory.org/julia-margaret-cameron-mrs-herbert-duckworth/. Accessed 25 February 2021.
Gernsheim, Helmut. Julia Margaret Cameron: Her Life and Photographic Work. New York: Aperture, 1975. Print.
Reilly, James M. "The History, Technique and Structure of Albumen Prints." The History, Technique and Structure of Albumen Prints. Stanford University Libraries, June 2011. Web. 25 Feb. 2021.
Stulik, Dusan C, and Art Kaplan. “Historical Background.” The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes: Albumen, The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, CA, 2013, pp. 4–7.
"Wet-collodion Process." Encyclopædia Britannica. Ed. Kathleen Kuiper. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1998. Web. 24 Feb. 2021.