Victorian Visual Culture

I don’t exactly know how I came across this site, but the first entry about the grandma dressing up as a wood nymph made me laugh, so I thought I’d share.  It’s called the Top 10 Creepy Aspects of Victorian Life.

http://listverse.com/2009/08/29/top-10-creepy-aspects-of-victorian-life/

As we learned in class, photographs were staged, so it wasn’t surprising to read about number 2 on the list…however it was definitely a surprise to read that the families would pose with the dead.  I’m all for having a momento of a loved one who passed, but isn’t that a bit morbid to pose with a corpse?  Also, it would creep me out every time I looked at the photo, knowing that in that photo the person I love was no longer present; it was just their body there, their presence was already gone.