Julia Margaret Cameron: A Poetry of Photography

Julia Margaret Cameron was a renowned photographer who believed in the poetic possibilities of her medium, blurring the 'real subject before her lens to pursue the sublime and beautiful. This book celebrates her collection, which includes her poetry and key images for her Illustrations to Tennysons Idylls of the King, demonstrating her fascination with the artistic connection between poetry and photography.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 16 November 2023
Publisher: Bodleian Library

Renowned photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is renowned for her evocative portraits of eminent Victorians, including John Herschel, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Taylor, George Frederic Watts, Ellen Terry, and Julia Stephen. This study of her work reveals how deeply she was convinced of the poetic possibilities of her medium, particularly its capacity for suggestive rather than literal meaning. She did not get it right on all counts, and her practice violated the aesthetic orthodoxy of the day. But the blurring of the 'real subject before her lens created unparalleled possibilities for a broader pursuit of the sublime and beautiful. Drawing on over 100 items from the photographic collections at the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, as well as comparative works of art, this book celebrates a collection that illustrates the aesthetic development of the photographer from her earliest pictures to her most poetic photographs. It also includes her own poetry and the key images she created for her extraordinary Illustrations to Tennysons Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, demonstrating her fascination with the artistic connection between poetry and photography.

Renowned photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is renowned for her evocative portraits of eminent Victorians, including John Herschel, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Taylor, George Frederic Watts, Ellen Terry, and Julia Stephen. This study of her work reveals how deeply she was convinced of the poetic possibilities of her medium, particularly its capacity for suggestive rather than literal meaning. She did not get it right on all counts, and her practice violated the aesthetic orthodoxy of the day. But the blurring of the 'real subject before her lens created unparalleled possibilities for a broader pursuit of the sublime and beautiful. Drawing on over 100 items from the photographic collections at the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, as well as comparative works of art, this book celebrates a collection that illustrates the aesthetic development of the photographer from her earliest pictures to her most poetic photographs. It also includes her own poetry and the key images she created for her extraordinary Illustrations to Tennysons Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, demonstrating her fascination

Weight: 1658g
Dimension: 243 x 267 x 29 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781851245840