Rosie. Julia Margaret Cameron, photographer (British, born India, 1815 - 1879) 1867–1868 Children were highly popular subjects for Victorian artists. In 1867 the British Journal of Photography published the advice of a Philadelphia photographer on “Taking the Baby.” The author asserts that children “try the patience of your Job of an artist” and that the photographer should be ready “to transform them into smiling cherubs on his magic plate.” Julia Margaret Cameron’s approach with her child models varied from insistent directing to delighted appreciation. Her objective was always to transform
Rosie. Julia Margaret Cameron, photographer (British, born India, 1815 - 1879) 1867–1868 Children were highly popular subjects for Victorian artists. In 1867 the British Journal of Photography published the advice of a Philadelphia photographer on “Taking the Baby.” The author asserts that children “try the patience of your Job of an artist” and that the photographer should be ready “to transform them into smiling cherubs on his magic plate.” Julia Margaret Cameron’s approach with her child models varied from insistent directing to delighted appreciation. Her objective was always to transform them into paradigms of angelic contentment.> > Cameron’s portrait of the unknown Rosie, a child of no more than eleven or twelve, resonates with a luminescent quality. She wears a loose blouse of a romantic style and, bedecked in a beaded necklace, is a figure of iconic beauty. Her hand is placed over her heart in a gesture of youthful piety, and her head is bathed in light from above, similar to the artist’s treatment of great men, whose heads seem to be crowned with halos.> > Cameron’s Freshwater studio was carefully organized to allow a flexible and virtuosic use of light. She used only a narrow stream of top and side illumination and diffused the remainder with white roller blinds. In February 1868 a review for the Art Journal remarked on the skillful handling of light in Cameron’s portraits on view at the German Gallery, London: “In common photographic portraiture, breadth of light is the rule; but it will be understood how much these examples differ from this rule, where we say, and it is not too much to say of them, that the visitor is occasionally reminded of Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Giorgione, Velazquez, and others of the princes of their art.”> > Cameron typically employed black drapery and dark materials about her models to create a suitably artistic effect and to ensure that very little light reflected back onto the sitter’s face. In thi
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Photo credit: © piemags/GB24 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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