Julia Margaret Cameron didn't take up photography until the age of 48, after raising six children. She thought that the commercial visiting-card portraits were "vulgar, leveling and literal." In her own photography, she added an air of piety to her portraits. Over a third of her portraits are of women, all with heavy-lidded, soulful eyes. Her friends and neighbors were transformed into angels, the Madonna, the Christ child's birth.
In 1875, she illustrated Idylls of the King and Other Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Here, unlike with her religious portraits, she clothed her subjects in elaborate costumes and used settings to evoke the legend of King Arthur.
"My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the Real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing to the Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and Beauty."
Fascinating - I wasn't aware of her - but will now do some research - lots of art inspiration.
ReplyDeleteJust what I thought: Fascinating!
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