Victorian Visual Culture

When viewing Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations for Salomé, I was struck by a strange sense of familiarity, but was initially unable to figure out why. As I scrolled through them, however, I realized that they reminded me somewhat of the illustrations of American artist and writer Edward Gorey. When I was a child, my family had a copy of Gorey’s short story collection Amphigorey that I read over and over again, morbidly fascinated by the dark content and somewhat unsettling ink drawings. Beardsley’s illustrations inspired me to revisit some of Gorey’s work, and I was intrigued by its similarity to some of what we’ve covered in this class, including Salomé itself.

While Edward Gorey was not alive during the Victorian era (he was born in 1925 and died in 2000), his work often portrays Victorian settings and characters, and in fact he did cover illustrations for various books including Bleak House. He also wrote many books, often formatted like children’s picture books, that depict individuals in Victorian dress meeting dark, gruesome fates. For instance, his 1963 picture book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, or, After the Outing is a rhyming alphabet book telling of the grisly deaths of 26 young children, many of whom look as though they could be characters in a story like Bleak House or Alice in Wonderland. The book begins, “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs; B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clara who wasted away; D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.” The book continues through the whole alphabet, with each section accompanied by an ink drawing of the death in question. The violent content and dark, sketchy illustrations contrast with the expectations one would typically have of an alphabet book, creating a chilling overall effect.

There are multiple different reasons that reading Salomé and viewing Beardsley’s illustrations made me think of Gorey’s work. For one thing, while Beardsley’s drawings are more detailed and finished-looking than Gorey’s, they have a similarly unnerving quality to them. The dark ink, hunched figures, and vaguely surreal imagery of Beardsley’s work reminded me fairly strongly of Gorey’s work that I had seen in the past. Additionally, the content of the play itself reminded me in some ways of the stories that Gorey tells. His stories and illustrations are designed to disturb and unsettle the viewer, and the deliberately unpleasant content of Salomé reminded me of this. Much of the dialogue of Salomé is also written in blunt, straightforward sentences, which are somewhat reminiscent of the simple, gruesome statements found in Gorey’s work. Reading the play and viewing Beardsley’s illustrations felt almost like an evolution of reading Amphigorey as a child, and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Beardsley’s work was an inspiration for Gorey.

Gorey, Edward. The Gashlycrumb Tinies. 1963. Bloomsbury, 2019.

Wilde, Oscar.  Salome: a tragedy in one act / translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, with sixteen drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. John Lane London; New York, 1920.

We started our ENG-325 course with Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess,’ discussing the poem’s commentary on portraiture and what this visual tool says about society. While sifting back through the course material, I noticed how ‘My Last Duchess’ has a lot to say regarding gaze, be it of the viewer or the subject, especially when the latter is female. For Browning, it successfully reveals the social economy of gender and control in English society. He brings to light the dark underbelly of Victorian society and the place of gaze in particularly determining the patriarchal culture of inherence and marriage.

‘My Last Duchess,’ in brief, is a poem following a Duke as he introduces an unnamed visitor to a portrait of his late wife. The power of the male viewer’s gaze begins here. The Duke has total control over the portrait of the Duchess, which he hides behind a curtain and decides who gets to gaze upon. The portrait becomes instrumental in exposing the patriarchal structure that controls the Duchess’ life, both when she was alive and now. The Duchess, who has no agency of her own in the poem, is the property of the Duke, who governs her life and words. It is left to him how he wants to describe her and what he wants to discuss about her. This gaze is very different from how the Duke describes the female gaze of the Duchess. This latter gaze is seen as dangerous and not deserving of agency. The Duke describes how the glances and looks of the Duchess led to her infidelity and relationship with the painter, Fra Pandolf. He states how the Duchess “liked whate’er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere.” The female gaze lacks control and leads to damage.

Browning’s poem says a lot about the privilege of looking in Renaissance and Victorian society along the lines of gender. Men have the rationality and power to decide the functions of gaze. On the other hand, women become mere objects of the male gaze. They cannot even tell their own stories or determine how they are portrayed.

While not directly linked to Browning’s poem and his discussion, I wonder how this idea of gaze and its relationship with gender has changed over the years. Where can we see some examples of women breaking through to gain power over their visual representation? One thing that got me thinking about an evolved history is the place of self-portraiture by female artists over the years. This art form allows subjects to change how they are seen and give them agency and control over their stories, unlike the Duchess in Browning’s poem.

For example, Freida Kahlo discusses how “I paint self-portraits because I am often so alone, because I am the person I know best.” Kahlo drew several self-portraits over her lifetime, using vivid colors, brushstrokes and usually gazing straight through the portrait to the viewer. Kahlo uses subtle artistic choices in her paintings that reveal her deeper psychological narrative and portray her experiences from the inside. As a result, she can use the medium to express her sexuality and suffering as she has experienced it. Kahlo establishes control over the gaze of the subject and the viewer. She paints herself to look at the camera directly, confronting her viewer to look into her life and see her story. In this process, she also has directed the viewer’s gaze in seeing what she wants them to see.

Kahlo is not alone. Women across cultures and the world have broken free from the gaze and power of men to establish their own narratives. Amrita-Sher-Gil, dubbed the Indian Freida Kahlo, is one of them. Sher-Gil is known for revolutionizing the artistic depiction of Indian women, giving voice to their inner experiences, and her self-portraits become the entry point into this. Her portraits capture her cultural identity Indian and Hungarian, and her accompanying range of personal emotions and experiences, such as her quest for belonging and troubles with loneliness and hopelessness. For example, Sher-Gil’s Self-Portrait as a Tahitian’ captures a nude Sher-Gil wearing a somber expression and staring into the distance. Her portrayal of her body here liberates the female body and sexuality from previous gender conventions and towards how she sees herself. 

Cindy Sherman is a more modern example of an artist who has used photographic self-portraits to reorient viewers’ gazes. Sherman is particularly fascinating to consider as she uses cinematic tools to transform herself into different possible representations. She constructs her portraits around certain female stereotypes but adds a twist. For example, prosthetics, wigs, and makeup are all worn incorrectly, challenging the conventions often set for how women were meant to be seen and perceived. Sherman does a lot more in challenging the portrayal of women in visual culture, paying attention to the ugly and ungroomed. Below are a few examples of her artwork that have depicted her boldness and confrontation of gendered conventions.

While these are among the few female artists who challenged gender convention and redirected the viewer’s gaze, the list is far from exhaustive. In addition, these examples are solely reliant on art and portraiture. With the danger of sounding tangential, I also wonder how technology today in 2021 has further changed self-representation. With our phones and easy access to camera (taking selfies, for example), I think it’s interesting to look at how this might have changed ideas on how we market ourselves and further redirect gaze as well.

Works Cited 

1. Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess. 
2. “10 Self-Portraits by Women Artists – Google Arts & Culture.” Google, Google, https://artsandculture.google.com/story/10-self-portraits-by-women-artists/nAJyCun4qsH7Jg.
3. “Frida Kahlo.” Frida Kahlo – The Complete Works, https://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/. 
4. “Amrita Sher-Gil – Google Arts & Culture.” Google, Google, https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/amrita-sher-gil/m09sphm?hl=en. 
5. “Overlooked No More: Amrita Sher-Gil, a Pioneer of Indian Art.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 June 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/obituaries/amrita-shergil-dead.html. 
6. “Amrita Sher-Gil.” Obelisk Art History, https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/amrita-sher-gil/.
7. “Cindy Sherman: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/artists/5392. 
8. “How Cindy Sherman Redefined Self-Portraiture (7 Artworks).” TheCollector, 29 Oct. 2021, https://www.thecollector.com/cindy-sherman-self-portraits/. 

In this class, we’ve explored aspects of the Victorian cult of death, particularly post-mortem photography, which afforded loved ones a last opportunity to immortalize the body of the deceased. Victorians were highly sentimental and preoccupied with death, and photography was not their only method of preservation. Some Victorians kept their loved ones’ teeth, but one of the most striking examples of post-mortem preservation are hairworks – artwork or jewelry made from a lock of the deceased’s hair. Hairworks allowed loved ones to carry their remains around with them – as bracelets, necklaces, and hairclips. When people die, they leave objects and memories behind, but hairworks far surpass earthly possessions or abstract memories as commemorative instruments. They are tangible pieces of their bodies.

Hair was an ideal medium, as it can last for centuries without losing its pigmentation. Most fascinating is how the Victorians saw hair as a suitable stand-in for the person’s essence. It goes farther than a photograph or artistic representation of their likeness: it contains actual organic material from their bodies, therein keeping them alive in-part (no matter that hair is technically dead to begin with). Some pieces combine post-mortem photography with hairworks, framing the photographs with floral wreaths made from hair to create a more holistic representation of the departed.

Another intriguing aspect of hairworks was their usage as talismans that could connect the living to the dead. In The Dead Still Among Us: Victorian Secular Relics, Hair Jewelry, and Death Culture, Deborah Lutz explores the usage of Hairworks in Wuthering Heights. Upon Catherine’s death, Heathcliff steals into her room and replaces the lock of Edward’s hair in her locket with his own. He desires a part of his presence to go with her to whenever it is that she goes, and believes that connecting a piece of his body to hers would make it easier to find her on the other side. Lutz says that Heathcliff believes that “Catherine’s death doesn’t mean she has disappeared, but rather that she has become temporarily unlocatable.” Hairworks, then, are more than mere memorials; they are evidence of a soul still in existence, a mortal tether to a person who hasn’t ceased to exist, but has simply gone somewhere inaccessible to the living.

Sources:

Lutz, Deborah. “The Dead Still Among Us: Victorian Secular Relics, Hair Jewelry, and Death Culture.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 39, no. 1, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 127–42, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41307854.

Bangalore, the city I grew up in, is an odd concoction: tucked away amidst its metropolitan sky-scraping apartments, trafficked streets, and metro lines is a quaint sanctuary of sprawling colonial-style bungalows. Tiled terracotta roofs, dome-arched doorways, decorative parapets, and stained glass windows set the houses apart as visually striking unique structures of a hybrid architecture. The buildings display styles of east and west coming together, blending the medieval Hindu and Islamic styles of India with Victorian England’s Neoclassical styles.

The bungalows in Bangalore are few amongst a vast set of structures across India that capture in their pillars and roofs the history of the nation and its trysts with colonialism. Amongst the family is a classic example of the hybrid architecture — the famed Chhatrapati Shivaji Train Station of Bombay, formerly known as The Victoria Terminus Station. Designed by the architectural engineer Frederick William Stevens in 1878, the sprawling station wears a contemporary Victorian Gothic style, closely resembling the London St Pancras Railway Station. The building fashions an iron framework, church-like countered arching roofs, multiple stories, and round turrets, all characteristic of a Victorian architectural style that was emerging at the second half of the nineteenth century. In addition, amongst other things, gargoyles, such as dogs, crocodiles, and lizards, distinctive Victorian Gothic ornaments, are used as drain spouts on the building. Amidst all this is a figure of Queen Victoria herself, after whom the building was initially named. However, Chhatrapati Shivaji station blends this Victorian Gothic architecture with a traditional Indian model. While the main structure of the building is modeled after Victorian architecture and built to suit the functions familiar more to the British (over Indians), aesthetics reach towards incorporating Indian styles as well. A stone dome and deep verandahs, for example, make the building look more like one of the Indian palaces or forts. This is supplemented with detailed engravings on the structure that closely resemble the stone sculpting done at traditional Indian temples.

This structure reveals the historical and colonial relationship of the British with India: They successfully remodeled India to suit their own needs while retaining some aspects of the culture for aesthetic pleasure. This architectural blending dates back to the nineteenth century when Indian architecture was veered toward western styles by the British to civilize South Asia and bring a sense of law, order, and beauty to its construction. Stations, courtrooms, bungalows, churches, and forts were built in Victorian models, with architects and engineers coming in from England. Chhatrapati Shivaji is one such example. However, as with this station and other buildings, Indian styles remained for a degree of a new visual appeal. These Hindu and Islamic styles were adapted to suit the western building requirements and more as wall hangings and visual aesthetics pushed to the back as mere accents for the looming Victorian architecture. Bombay itself is one such locus of this architecture: the Rajabai Clock Tower, the BMC building, the Bombay High Court, along with Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal, fashion Victorian buildings with Indian accents.

These historic buildings are not alone. Bangalore bungalows are a clear example of the domestic being influenced by this design: the houses are Victorian in style with South Indian elements here and there. The large houses are marked by square architecture, detailed pillars, and high, sloping roofs adapted from Victorian architecture. Verandahs and Indian floorings accent these to adapt to the climate of India. These houses still prevail in the city and are a part f Bangalore’s identity. while apartments and modern houses slowly permeate their way into the city, these bungalows are reminiscent of a previous history and visual world of the city. Following are some images of both Indian and Victorian buildings that capture the visual similarity and differences between the structures.

Following are Victorian style building from England

Works Cited 

1. A city icon – Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus – Google Arts & Culture. Google. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/a-city-icon-chhatrapati-shivaji-maharaj-terminus/yAICfPyC2jrBIQ?hl=en. 
2. St. Pancras Station, London. (n.d.). Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture/pancras/1.html. 
3. An illustrated guide to the victorian gothic architecture of Mumbai. https://www.outlookindia.com/outlooktraveller/. (n.d.). Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.outlookindia.com/outlooktraveller/explore/story/70002/an-illustrated-guide-to-the-victorian-gothic-architecture-of-mumbai. 
4. Imperial India. A Tradition Created: Indo-Saracenic Architecture under the Raj. (n.d.). Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/india/indosaracenic.htm.
5. Houses of history: Bangalore’s Art Deco and Colonial Heritage. RoofandFloor Blog. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://roofandfloor.thehindu.com/real-estate-blog/bangalore-art-deco-colonial-heritage/.