The Pre-Raphaelite Camera: Aspects of Victorian Photography

Truth to nature, declared the Pre-Raphaelite painters, is the essence of art- to render the "distinct character" of every "flower, rock and cloud." But by the 1850s the new medium of photography was gaining ground and threatening to outstrip the Pre-Raphaelites in their artistic ideal. Each side viewed the other with intense suspicion. The Pre-Raphaelites proclaimed that "there is much in photography that is false," while the photographers hoped that "the Pre-Raphaelites will in despair give up their mere imitation and aim at higher principles of art." Yet such heated exchanges could not mask the many fascinating connections and interdependence between these rival arts.

The Pre-Raphaelite Camera explores all facets of this intriguing relationship, looking at both the Pre-Raphaelite use of the camera and, in particular, Pre-Raphaelite influence on the photography of the era. The text reveals that Ford Madox Brown spent time employed in a portrait studio; Millais relied heavily on photography for portraits and landscapes backgrounds, while Atkinson Grimshaw is known to have painted, secretly, over photographs. Of greater significance was the impact of the Pre-Raphaelite spirit on both the subject matter and approach of Victorian photography. The landscapes of such early masters of photography as Henry White and Roger Fenton are markedly similar in composition to paintings by Ford Madox Brown and John Everett Millais. Francis Frith's images echo works by Holman Hunt: Frith's Crocodile on a Sandbank is a kind of irreverent photographic aside to Hunt's portentous The Scapegoat. The Pre-Raphaelite femme fatale, created by Rossetti's fervid imagination, gave rise to a look for women which photographers, in particular Julia Margaret Cameron, exalted.

British art historian Michael Bartram, a specialist in the Victorian period, offers his challenging new interpretation in a text as entertaining as it is insightful. Many of the 178 photographs are here reproduced for the first time. In this splendid intermingling of photographs and Pre-Raphaelite paintings, the essence of both art forms is unveiled.