Yet Another Julia Margaret Cameron Exhibition

Sometimes the photographic world looks like a dog chasing its own tail.  What the poor animal is pursuing turns out to be itself.  So it is , we might argue, with  exhibitions of photographic work which we have often seen before.  The very strong impression is that we are not in fact looking at interesting advances in photographic history: we are looking at an institutional merry-go-round.

This thought is prompted by the recently opened exhibition (which I have not visited) “Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography” at the National Portrait Gallery which features Julia Margaret Cameron, Oscar Rejlander, Lewis Carroll and Lady Hawarden. JMC (if I may be so familiar with this great lady) had not one but two major exhibitions in 2016 which were not just overlapping in time but also in location since they were just down the road (Exhibition Road!) from one another in London, one at the V and A and the other at the Science Museum.  This wasn’t even a first since in 2003 exactly the same happened with exhibitions at both the NPG and the then National Media Museum in Bradford.  Hardly has the dust settled on the two most recent ones than she is back in action – at the NPG again –  this time with the familiar coterie of the other three.  Almost inevitably, Rejlander’s Two Ways of Life will be at the NPG so that those whose last chance to see it was in 2016 at the Drawn By Light exhibition in Bradford at the NMM (which naturally enough featured JMC too) again have a chance to refresh their memories. 

JMC excites much emotion.  Some consider her to be a mawkish dabbler and others to be a visionary genius.  You don’t have to have an opinion though.  Some days I find that I quite like to look at some of her photographs and others I don’t . But that one of Iago above does fascinate me.  What has she done to it?  If you follow the hairline round to the cheekbones and then the chin you seem to have one face.  If you then look at the jawline you seem to have another face in a completely different plane.  It is a very odd effect - as though the front  of the face is some sort of mask superimposed on another head.

The quality of her work is not the issue though.  It’s more like the French Impressionists in the 60s and 70s and beyond.  Whether they are good or bad is by now beside the point.  We are so familiar with them and endless reproductions of them that it is no longer possible to look with a fresh eye and a clear mind.  The books have been written, the research has been done, the work is familiar, the stories are known and the reputations are secure. 

What then is the point?  Perhaps it is a kind of security.  Those who are expert in these matters are able to air their knowledge.  Those who have collected assiduously are rewarded in their judgement.  Visitors who seek certainty in these matters are reassured by a paddle in safe waters.  And doubtless the NPG will congratulate itself on a successful exhibition.  

Here’s to the next one!