Book Review - Julia Margaret Cameron: Arresting Beauty

 It's been a busy couple of weeks at Chez Walker, but what a splendid delight to find there is a gorgeous new book on Julia Margaret Cameron out this week!

This beautiful tome comes via the V&A and Thames and Hudson, so you know you are getting a quality product.  It's actually an exhibition catalogue but serves as a general catalogue of the splendid collection of Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs held by the V&A.  If you can cast your mind back to the 2015 celebrations on the 200th anniversary of her birth (was it really 2015?!), the V&A and the Science Museum both had exhibitions of the works they held. I was surprised to see the V&A producing a new book, especially after the glorious beauty of the catalogue they produced then, but this is a very luxurious feeling, hardback catalogue that is a pleasure to hold.

Daisies Pied (1870-74) Julia Margaret Cameron

Split into three sections with an introductory essay by Marta Weiss, the catalogue covers The Art of Photography, Portraits and Storytelling. Interspersed with the beautifully reproduced images are pages of Cameron's notes on her work and process.  Through these sections we follow Cameron from her earliest solo works (acknowledging that she obviously took images before that famous present of a camera given by her daughter) to her final images on the plantation at the end of her life.

My Grand Child Aged 2 Years & 3 Months (1865)

In The Art of Photography, we start with the famous image of Annie Philpot in 1864, and the narrative of how it transported Cameron from merely trying to photograph to an artist capable of arresting beauty.  I am always staggered by how quickly Cameron gets into her groove of the powder-soft images of Mary Hillier, often holding a pouting child or slumbering infant. All are gorgeous and sepia, with a short label text describing what you see in the image.

Herr Joseph Joachim (1868)

Her Pioneering Portraits show how Cameron took images of poets, scientists, family and servants with equal care, vision and dignity.  The deep shadows around Henry Taylor make him look like a wise statue, whereas as the tiny orphaned son of the King of Ethiopia gazes at us with an unreadable expression that has lately raised questions over his position. What is interesting is that she very rarely showed the talented victims with their attributes, the exception being Joseph Joachim, pictured with his violin. The rest are draped and the concentration is on their faces as if we could see the genius there before our eyes in the lines on their faces.

'So Like a Shatter'd Column Lay the King' (c.1875)

Finally, we explore the world of Cameron's narrative pieces, which have been less fashionable and seem somehow more dated than her more aesthetic works.  Here we visit Biblical lands as well as Camelot, as Cameron's storytelling encompassed her faith as well as her passions.  In the past, the storytelling elements have been much maligned as people thought of the rather amateur dramatics of 'So Like a Shatter'd Column Lay the King' (which is mercifully absent, despite being in the V&A collection), but it is more a case of her narrative pieces verses those which have only their beauty as their subject. Within this section are pieces that take their inspiration from poems such as The Dream (1869) which takes its wellspring from Milton's 'On his Deceased Wife'.  You will notice that some of the photographs could move within the book to be in any of the sections but the grouping are satisfying, complementary and beautiful.

Interestingly, by the end of the last section, the photographs are partnered with the handwritten Tennyson poem they are illustrating rather than a curator's label, reproducing the massive editions of his poems that Cameron created after being dissatisfied with the cabinet editions and their engravings of her works.

This is a gorgeous edition and will no doubt be popular as it is well priced and a smaller, more convenient size (it's around the scale of my books, like Light and Love).  The short label text make it an easy book to dip in and out of and if you are lucky enough to see the exhibition, it will make a splendid accompaniment and way of remembering the pictures. The introductory essay is great and gives a good place to see the photographs in the context of Cameron's life and her experiences beforehand.  There is not much in the way of biographical detail for the models, but from conversations I've had on social media, a lot of people prefer that so this is perfect if all you want to read about is the images.  It would make a wonderful present to introduce someone to the photographs of Cameron, and I'm always delighted to see people coming to Mrs Cameron, who is an absolute National Treasure and one of our pioneering artists.  May she continue to rise in profile and this is a lovely way to ascend.

The book is available from all good bookshops now and a link to the touring exhibition can be found here.