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| A rare sight - me at the ironing board! |
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| Covers layered in pairs |
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| Covers overlapped in a line |
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| More overlaps |
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| and again |
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| Different combinations of layering using the silk circles |
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| Not sure this gives the right feeling. Too closely spaced, too busy, don't like the different fabrics together |
I was quite pleased when I finished sewing the covers, but now I've seen them set out, I'm a bit disappointed. I tried out a selection of background fabrics, but I don't like them mixed up together. I think the white starched cotton cambric works best. I think the 8x8 grid is too much and will try setting out 7x7. If this works, it might mean I don't need to stitch any more, even if I remove all the non-standard fabric covers. I quite like the black and grey hand stitched covers, but the coloured ones don't add to the message. The silk cambric is rigid enough, but I don't have many of these covers. The cotton ones, even when starched and laid out flat, were starting to curl in the heat of the studio. They would curl very badly if pinned to a wall. Further thought required.
I cheered up once I went to the V&A class. We had 3 excellent lectures: Lady Painters to Professionals; Women and Impressionism; and Amateurs, Artists and Women Photographers at the V&A.
In the 19th century, art training moved from being done with the family business, to external tuition provided for individuals. Provided funds were available, art training was done via art school, formal training and the obligatory to Rome. There was a Battle of the Styles: Neoclassicism (Line, intellect, discipline, studies of past masters) and Romanticism (Colour, emotion, excess, spontaneous).
We were shown an image of a story by Pliny where a woman traces the outline of sleeping hero on the wall before he goes to war, and were told that this is how the idea originated that women were imitators who copied outlines rather than worked from original ideas. Women were excluded from art academies and therefore did not receive the training to portray the male hero. Exclusion from art academies also meant women did not have the opportunity to work on big canvases (space requirements), and big pictures have more impact. Size matters. If you only produce small images, you only achieve small recognition.
Women painters were categorised into two groups:
Talent and no need to earn - "lady painters" therefore amateurs
Talent and need to earn - "professional copyists" who were alleged to "infest the galleries" as there was a big demand for traditional copies of European masters.
Amateur is a word derived from Amore (to love) which means a person who works for the love of the subject, rather than as being a skilled craftsman who earns a living this way.
We looked at Women's Work by Florence Claxton which was a satirical take on works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
In the centre is a pampered male, surrounded by women who are content to minister to him by reading, singing, adoring and attending to his male baby. On the outskirts of the image, there are portrayals of alternatives for female occupation: 3 governesses competing for the attention of one male child; women migrating (the preferred Government solution for the surplus of single women!); women obeying the preferences of religon and law by taking on the traditional mother/homemaker role; a locked door indicating the exclusion of women from Medicine; or an escape via Art!
Women and Impressionism covered how the art world mushroomed in the 19th century due to the evolution of a large wealthy middle class. It was noted that Art was largely a male career - men closed ranks, and affluent middle class families sponsored a son who chose art as a career. Women who were skilled were accepted into this environment provided they were grateful for a lesser role, and accepted less money than men for their artwork.
Impressionism suited many women. Open composition; light dabby strokes. Lake, beach, mountain scenes, en plein air. It moved away from the traditional forms of art portraying the indoors; heroic, dark, male, nudes. We looked at Braquemond, originally a copyist, who moved mid-career to impressionism, but when her husband actively prevented her exhibiting because he hated her new works, she gave up painting. Eva Gonzales was influenced by Manet, but had a short career, dying after childbirth, aged 34. Berthe Morisot portrayed modern life for 19th century women and represents a major strand in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. She worked with a restricted colour scheme and free spontaneous brushwork. Typically is seen as producing socially constrained pieces, but also did some outdoor cornfield pieces, so the whole picture may not be clear.
Dr Marta Weiss, V&A Curator for Photographs did a wonderful session on Amateurs, Artists and Women Photographers at the V&A. In 1852 the first photo collection in the world was created by the V&A. Women were involved from the start - no need to study from the nude, and photography was a practice pursued by amateurs.
Anna Atkins did the first cyanotype collection for a book British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns in 1843. This was the first photographically illustrated book (previously watercolour plates).
Mary Dillwyn created salted paper prints in 1853 and Isabel Agnes Cowper contributed to the documentation and recording of photographs in 1868.
Julia Margaret Cameron was a key figure. She was living on the Isle of Wight and had been working as a photographers assistant to John Herschel (key male photographer), when she received her first camera at the age of 48 in 1864. She was a rule breaker and was deliberate and pioneering in her technique. She deliberately created portrait photos with soft focus (which her peers severely criticised) and used her children, family, friends and servants in allegorical, historical and tableaux formats. She was neighbours with Tennyson on the Isle of Wight and used him (and other famous people) as a model. Photographic process was easily flawed by cracks, hairs, finger prints on the glass negatives but she worked with the faults. She tolerated and embraced them. Cracks from the glass plates can be seen on the prints in the Archive. There was a lot of debate about how she worked with the flaws in Double Star, where faults in the negative actually enhance the portrait of two little girls by appearing to give them a halo.
By 1865 (one year!) she sold a collection to the V&A. Her husband was friends with Henry Cole, director of V&A, and Henry Cole recognised her value. Cameron positioned herself well by donating a further collection of work to the V&A around the same time. She was known for having an influential husband and for being pushy. She was knowledgeable about technical issues regarding why plates deteriorated and used this to ensure the prints were accepted and stored correctly, rather than trying to save the plates. She photographed staff at the South Kensington Museum and demonstrated her astuteness on how to position herself both as an artist and a museum worthy. A very astute networker.
Tennyson requested Cameron to do photos to fit his work, then used her photos to create woodcuts for the published books. She was displeased by this, so made her own albums, with pages of script from his poems facing the photos.
We were also shown collages from the 19th century using photos. Kate Gough had taken a drawn image of monkeys and cut out photographed heads of people and stuck them on top of the monkeys bodies. This was meant to have been created when Darwin was publicising his Evolution of the Species monograph. Gough also did a similar image using ducks. Although this is done in photoshop frequently now, it makes the point, nothing is new! The Victorians were there before us!
A lovely day out.
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