On beauty, portraiture and "The Cult of Beauty" at the V&A

So, I am in search of beauty; that much has become clear. I thought I might understand more about what it is by visiting The Cult of Beauty at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is a new exhibition about the aesthetic movement bewween 1860 and 1900.


Midsummer by Albert Joseph Moore


The aesthetic movement artists sought to create a new kind of art, freed from cultural ideas and moral or religious codes; in other words "Art for Art's sake". They created art that existed only in order to be beautiful, with no moral point or stories behind the work. Artists such as James McNeill Whistler, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris were members, and the V&A museum opened in 1857 at the beginning of the movement.

Paintings contained women whose looks, and lifestyles, were at odds with conventional Victorian ideals of demure beauty; they created entirely new types of beauty. The artists brought together architecture, painting, china and furniture, describing how a complete room should look, in a description of " the house beautiful". They defined "taste" and "cultivation" as a way of living, and from this modern interior design and taste has developed. The aesthetic movment was the first "lifestyle revolution".

Oscar Wilde joined the group and became a the celebrity associated with aesthetic ideas. The choice of women models for paintings re-defined "beauty" and changed the way that women wished to be viewed. Flamboyancy in mens' clothing was described as "peacock dressing", a feature that re-emerged in the 1960's with a new style of dressing in a flamboyant way. The peacock, the lily, and the sunflower are the three motifs asociated with the movement.



Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.


By the end of the 1800's red hair was established as a "beautiful" feature, thanks to artists such as Rossetti.



Sibylla by Rosssetti

So it seems that beauty was re-defined by the movement, a fact that fits with my experiences on this course; culture and history play important parts in defining what one individual or group sees as beautiful. Currently most photographers are using all white backgrounds for their websites; this will no doubt change in a few years time. Portrait photograhers have  moved from busy backdrops to simple white studio shots.  In North East Brazil, what counts as a beautiful portrait is very different to current British studio portraits.

   

Photo Paintings from North East Brazil © Collection Titus Riedl. Courtesy of Nazraeli Press
as seen at Brighton Photo Biennial 2010
 
 

There are very few photographs in the exhibition, but I was interested to see works by Julia Margaret Cameron, whose  illustrating her friend Tennyson's poem "Idylls of the King". I came across her work earlier when I first started researching books and poetry.

 These photographs are designed to look like oil paintings from the same time period, including rich details like historical costumes and intricate draperies. Nevertheless, Cameron saw these photographs as art, just like the oil paintings they imitated. The image below shows her maid dressed as a tragic heroine of Arthurian legend, with an excerpt form the poem as it's title.



Julia Margaret Cameron, "Call I follow, I follow, let me die!" (Mary Hillier), c. 1867, albumen print, The Royal Photographic Society, Bath, England


I will talk more later about the effect of the movement on interior design and architecture. I found the china, furniture and paintings generally heavy and over ornate; a clear indicator that I live in a time when beauty is defined in a different way, with light and simplicity taking preference over ornate decor and rich colours.
I wonder how this affects nature photography; I am not yet sure that I know how I define beauty in nature. I need to explore this area, possibly by starting with what I find ugly.

I will leave you with a portrait and some flowers that remind me of all the blossom I have been capturing in suburbia. Notice also her red hair, the oriental vases and soft drapery that all defined beauty at that time.


Albert Moore "Azaleas" 1867


Algernon Swinburne, a critic at the time said
"the meaning of the painting is beauty: and its reason for being is to be"

Hand made books and self publishing. Hawkwood Press is born

late afternoon, Hawkwood

Now that I am focussed on outoor photography and "beauty" I am back enjoying my photography. I have ventured in to the woods at dawn and dusk, taken shots for my own diorama, and had fun with the bushes of suburbia. Suddenly walking the dog around the block has taken on a whole new source of pleasure; finding playful shots of bushes, fences, lamp posts and the like.

trees in BR1

 All of these subjects will fit well into the London Villages Project.London Villages Project


I have decided to self publish a book.

 I would like it to have a ISBN number; that way I can sell it in shops or on-line ( getting confident here...........), and a copy of it will have to be placed in the British Library. I like the idea of that. So I have been researching ISBN numbers, which are easy to acquire from the UK ISBN agency, Nielsen, who happen to be in Woking, where I was born. The numbers are supplied to publishers; in batches of 10 or more. Unfortunately they can't be passed on, so I will have to create my own publishing company and if anyone wishes to use one, they would have to be published under my company name. The alternative is to use an existing company, but then I would lose the overall control and the opportunity to choose a publishing name.

So what should it be called?

More research; on how to name a company; so much more fun than reading books or taking photographs; I feel as though I am moving into a whole new subject area. But that is the joy of this course; it takes one down new roads that were never imagined before starting. A hand made book and my own publishing company; this is fun.

So here are my top tips on how to name a company from the reading that I have done

It should be

• relevant
• a word that sounds strong
• easy to spell for searches
• a word that creates a visual image
• short
• not likely to tie you down too much in the future should your aims change

I looked on the British Book Fair website for the names of existing publishers; here are a few that stand out as being well known or memorable

• Aurum
• Envisage
• 21st editions
• Camberwell Press
• Penguin

I considered using my own name but it is too long and not visually strong. I thought of several related to photography, the outdoors or with visual connections, but they have all been thought of before. So I am going to use Hawkwood Press. This relates to the first book that will come off the press, and is personal to me, but short enough and visual enough to work for other titles or other people should I wish to collaborate in the future. It is traditional, the word "press" meaning, amongst other things

a.printing press


b.a printing or publishing establishment

c.the art, business, or practice of printing

So for me it represents my foray into the publishing/printing world, but also represents my preference for the outdoors and doesn't restrict me to photographic works.

In order to apply for the ISBN number I have to submit exampes of the "Title Page" and "Title Page Verso"

The title page verso is

"a page on the back of the title page, where the bibliographical details and the copyright notice are printed"

examples and more information about ISBN numbers can be found at Nielsen.

This lead me on to further efforts to produce a document in InDesign. I can now import images, but it is a very steep learning curve. I really need to decide what type of binding and size my book will be before I do any more work on creating it.

I found some beautiful hand made books at Leijonstedt. The creator uses a white peacock fanned tail as her artist's mark, which represents the open pages of a book to great visual effect. I would like to create a logo, but am conscious that I am digressing further and further away from getting on with the project.

experimenting with symmetry

Having just returned from the V&A's new exhibition "The Cult of Beauty", I now also know that the Peacock is one of the key motifs of the Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 ( more on that later).

The aesthetic movement exhibited at the V&A in "The Cult of Beauty"

For now I need to decide on the size of my book, the type of binding, and get cracking.



my street; wherever I am in BR1 there are plane trails in the sky