Victorian Visual Culture

During our discussion in this week’s class and after looking at Julia Margaret Cameron’s work, I was reminded of this image titled “Yard Eggs” by Sally Mann in the Mount Holyoke Art Museum’s collection. Although this photograph isn’t currently on display, I was able to see it in Professor Young’s American Gothic class. 

The subject of the photo is Mann’s daughter, who was a consistent subject in her mother’s work alongside her siblings and extended family. Connecting to the idea of intention and consent in photography, the intimacy of the photo feels off putting in that this young girl is used as a model by her mother who takes advantage of a daily and private moment for the sake of her own artistic vision. Of course, this is a minor example in comparison with the Carter and Hooper work we discussed in class, but it is interesting nonetheless.

In what I feel is a stronger connection to both the ideas of consensual intimacy and our class’s content in general, Julia Margaret Cameron’s work also reminded me very much of this photo, mainly through the amateur quality and the concept of an undeniably religiously framed work. From the young girl’s halo of hair, to her white dress, many of the symbols present in Mann’s photo signal a possible reference to purity in a traditionally Christian sense. Not only that, but the girl presents a hat full of eggs to the camera, as if to put an image of her own fertility on display to her own mother, who proves her own fertility indirectly by taking the photograph in the first place. Mann’s photo is reminiscent of Cameron’s consistent image of the “madonna” because of their cohesive intention in producing public religious art through representations of people they have coexisting private relationships with, despite the large gap of time between the two works(Mann’s photo was taken in 1991). In some ways, Cameron’s work feels much more sacred in its portrayal than this photo by Mann, despite her maternal relationship with the subject.