Victorian Visual Culture

On a very rainy night in October, our Victorian Literature and Visual Culture class found themselves gathered at the Mount Holyoke art museum instead of their usual meeting place in Shattuck seated around a long table. The change of venue was welcome and everyone seemed to be in good spirits. After putting away our various belongings, including wet umbrellas and backpacks, we gathered in a semi-circle in the art building lobby around the two women who would be our guides for the evening. Ellen Alvord and Kendra Weisbin were lovely from the start and their excitement at the opportunity to share the museum pieces with us was contagious. After a quick review of the rules (no food or drink and no pointing with pencil tips), we all proceeded through the glass doors into the museum.

I had walked past the museum countless times on my way to various classes being held in Gamble Auditorium just down the hall. I usually peeked through the glass to try to catch a glimpse of the art inside, but could barely see anything of interest. Before that night, I had only been to the museum once before in an introductory Biology class, so visiting with the sole intent to view the art as art and not simply a tool to learn observation skills was exciting for me. Walking into the place where I really only had small glimpses of what was inside, I was tempted to stop and look at all of the art in the first few rooms, but we were led through to one of the middle rooms.

In this room, a few exhibits were set up especially for us, the most noticeable a very large image that we would end up looking at first. We all gathered around, some opting to sit in the little chairs providing, some sitting on the floor and others standing, and were met with a large print. It was a map of New York City with lines criss-crossing the image and small pictures of scenes in the city placed where some of the lines intersected. A very large image of a woman dressed in a suit of armor, which appeared to be drawn, and her face a photograph took up a good portion of the right hand side of the print. Ships appear behind her in the background and a large compass is on the other side of the map in the bottom left corner.

After taking all of this in, Ellen and Kendra guided us in a very deep and thoughtful discussion of the image. Each interpretation was incredibly interesting and listening to the conversation and thoughts of my classmates was very enjoyable. After many different analyses, our guides inform us that the artist’s name is Jane Hammond, an artist from New York City, which makes the map of New York City in the photocollage more understandable. The photograph of the woman’s face on the body of the woman with the suit of armor turns out to be a photograph of the artist. This gives the photocollage are more personal interpretation, perhaps that it is a map of her favorite places in her home city.

With the discussion concluded, Ellen and Kendra invite us to walk around and observe the various exhibits set up both in the room we had been in and also in a smaller classroom towards the back of the museum. I started in the first room at a long table set up with three or four pieces. One was another photocollage by the same artist that had done the larger photocollage we had just discussed. Another image was a photograph of a bedroom with a scene from outside the room projected upside down on the wall. It was confusing at first and I couldn’t stop staring at it, remembering learning about the technique back in a high school photography class. Another image on the same table was a photograph of a girl on what appeared to be a lily pad. In the smaller classroom, there were about four or five stations set up. Before I had a chance to look at them all, we were called back together and divided into groups.

I was assigned to the station with rather eerie photographs of children on lily pads. However, the image that immediately caught my eye was a Daguerreotype photograph of a person that, if you looked at it straight on, you could see the reflection of your face over the image of the person. You had to look at it from the exact right angle to see the person correctly. After analyzing the pieces ourselves, Ellen and Kendra handed out sheets of information about each piece to further guide our discussions. The photographs of children on lily pads were by the artist Binh Danh who developed a method called “chlorophyll prints” to achieve such an effect where he uses the sun to print images onto leaves. The children were victims of a massacre, which made the prints even more eerie and unsettling.

After a break where delicious cookies were provided, we returned to share our different discussions with the class. It was very interesting going around to each station and hearing the background information on the pieces and my classmates interpretations of them. After the last group presented their findings, Ellen and Kendra wrapped up our visit with some closing remarks and an invitation to return to look at the pieces more closely. We were led back out of the museum, gathered our belongings, and headed out into the night. The visit was not only incredibly interesting, but also thought provoking.

On a not-so-cold December morning, several members of the class and I gathered at ten in the morning to visit the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. Some have already been to the museum, but it was the first time for me. I admit I was a little embarrassed that I never once visited, despite the fact that I was aware that Dickinson was not only a beloved alumna (putting aside the fact that she essentially dropped out) but that it was so close to where I was.

Needless to say, my knowledge of Dickinson was limited before this extensive tour. I was aware, however, of her reserved personality. Perhaps that is why my grade school self was so fond of her poems, particularly this one:

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

I heard the first lines of the two stanzas echo in my head throughout the tour, as I learned more about how fond she was of her privacy. Yet she seemed like such a personable individual based on the descriptions that Lucy, our tour guide and a Mount Holyoke alumna, gave.

Their parlour was rather disappointing, but with the understandings that it was renovated to become more modern… it was understandable. But still disappointing. I found that I was particularly attracted to the Aeolian harp that sat on a table before we went into the library. Maybe it was the musician in me, but it was eerily beautiful to think about the haunting sounds that it would have created that Emily greatly enjoyed.

A library says quite a lot about the individual, and I found that this was the case for the family. I was particularly amused when told that Mr Dickinson had a desire to keep Emily from reading contemporaries such as the Brontës or Charles Dickens, for fear that they would disrupt the mind. It’s always good to know that an attempt to ban books was still a thing even back in the nineteenth century. It’s also good to know that Emily disregarded that desire and went off to read them anyway.

However, I did not get the “aura” of Emily Dickinson (so to speak) until we reached her bedroom, which was still in process of being restored. Yet I found an odd delight standing in the empty room, hearing Lucy talk about the days Emily spent there. The room was open, with the many windows which allowed for her to see what was happening in the outside world without having to go outdoors.

After a tour of the Dickinson house, we trudged through the mud to the Evergreens, the house that Mr Dickinson gave to Austin, Emily’s older brother, as a means to keep the family together. It really was odd to me that he was so adamant about that, let alone the fact that his children were okay with it. Needless to say, the house had a completely different air to it. It was darker inside, but at the same time, more colorful and exciting to look around. There were all sorts of paintings and objects to look at. Again, the musician in me got a little too excited when I saw the Steinway piano. It also delighted me to know that they actually kept it in tune and that it was still playable. This made the house seem all the more alive despite its antiquity.

We got to see the dining hall, where Austin’s wife, Susan, entertained the guests (and she apparently did quite a good job at it). From there, we huddled together inside the kitchen, seeing the odd combinations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I found it intriguing that there was a (more or less) modern bathroom downstairs, yet when we walked upstairs to pass by the nursery, there was another bathroom but one that would have been more common in their time. It truly reflected on how long the family has stayed in that house, as well as the particular maintenance in keeping it in its original condition for as long as possible. I admit that seeing those two bathrooms made me curious to know what the bathrooms in the Dickinson home would have looked like… since we never actually got to see any.

(Curious where the mind goes, whether it is against your will or not—)

We ended on a rather tragic note as we all shuffled into what was the master bedroom, but also considered the “death room” given how many people passed away there. Lucy, however, finished an altogether wonderful and descriptive tour of Emily’s life and house that made me want to revisit some of her poems, particularly the aforementioned.

It was ironic that she dreaded the idea of becoming a “Somebody” and yet there we were… standing in her house (let alone her room) and discussing extensively about her life. I can’t imagine that she would have been all too pleased about it, but at the same time, I also feel that a part of her is pleased that people did take a delight and charm in her writings, since she did want to publish them.

She may have wanted to be “Nobody” but I’m glad that her writings were able to escape freely and inspire many poets, as well as give us a glimpse of a unique life.

All the way back during Fall break I visited Boston for the first time with my mother, who was visiting from England. By chance we ended up at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum because we though we didn’t have time for the Museum of Fine Arts.

I was immediately enamoured with the idea of the museum. Gardner, who was considered an outrageous women during her life, designed and built the building as a museum to display her vast art collection. Gardner’s will stipulated that the collection stay on display in the same way as she designed it after her death. Because of this decision the museum to me offered a unique insight into the life and mind of Gardner, who to me seems to be an incredibly interesting figure.

Isabella Stewart Gardner was a remarkable woman, she refused to be constrained by the social expectations of her situation, at the end of the Victorian era in Boston. She travelled the world and collected many rare art works and artefacts as well as befriending and supporting the artists and writers of her day including John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Anders Zorn and Henry James. There are several portraits of Gardner, some of which were extremely controversial at the time of their production. One pictures her in a black dress, a portrait Gardner commissioned herself. The painting is by John Singer Sargent, Gardner’s close friend. Upon the portrait’s first public display it received many negative comments. This was mostly because her posture was deemed too bold for a woman, her gaze meets the eye of the observer and seems to be appraising. The neckline and silhouette of her dress was judged to be too plunging and daring for the 47 year old it pictured. These comments upset Gardner’s husband so the portrait was not displayed in public while he lived. It now takes pride of place in the Gothic room on the third floor of the museum and I found it immediately striking. It shows Gardner as strong and authoritative, which was very refreshing, she was not a “woman looking sideways”, but someone intelligent and daring for her time, refusing to adhere to society’s expectations.

The museum today has a large glass fronted extension but originally walking into Gardner’s creation the first thing you come to is the courtyard. The space has a classical feel with its arches and columns and various reproduction and original statues. Immediately I noticed the sort of patchwork quality of the layout, with pieces seemingly scattered about the grass. But at the same time there was obviously real skill with how the garden was put together. The whole museum was built surrounding this open air centre and as I continued to explore the three floors of the museum I discovered that the garden was visible from each, and it was stunning from every angle. The piece which stood out the most for me within the courtyard area was a large terracotta fallen vase, in a classical Greek shape. It rested on its side at an angle on a small bank in front of a fountain.  While it was arguably the most plain piece in the whole garden there was something which struck me at the way it seemed to have just landed in its place, very casually and seemingly without care. At the same time however it seems impossible to me to imagine the garden without it. This feeling I had just from looking at this urn made me realise the skill with which Gardener assembled her museum, at once appearing effortless and calculated.

I feel that the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum is a unique place. It was purpose built and designed around the pieces it houses. The rooms themselves therefore become works of art in their own right, painstaking decorated to accompany the art works in a particular way. While I explored the place I was reminded of the Walter Benjamin essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. The Garner Museum acts as an enhancer for the aura of original works of art. At a time when the industrial revolution had really taken hold, instead of revelling in the accessibility of reproduced works of art, Gardner cultivated and revelled in the uniqueness of the work of art. Rather than hanging pieces on a blank emotionless classical gallery wall she surrounds the viewer with colour, complimentary artefacts (and even live music while she was still alive and living in the museum). The effect is a full sensory immersion which brings art to life. I would challenge anyone who considers art to be boring or outdated to visit the Isabella Stewart Garner Museum and maintain that opinion.

Amherst, MA — “Just a turn, Maddie, and it’s freedom,” Emily Dickinson used to say to her small niece as they entered her bedroom and she pretended to turn a non-existent lock on the door. For fans of the  incredibly private, world-renowned poet — a different kind of turn, up a small driveway off of Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts — grants them a different kind of freedom: a chance to explore the home Dickinson lived in from when she was twenty-five until her death at the age of fifty-five.

The excitement that comes with that voyeuristic freedom is palpable as our class full of Dickinson-lovers enters the Emily Dickinson Museum on a sunny December morning. The tour has been arranged specially for our class, an English seminar called Victorian Literature and Visual Culture, courtesy of an alumna who works at the Museum. The alumna, Lucy, greets us with a warm smile tinged with her four years at Mount Holyoke: a recognition of our simultaneous excitement about the visit and the exhaustion she knows we must feel in the middle of finals week. We drop our bags and jackets underneath the staircase in the imposing, colonial-style home. Having spent the last seven years of my life reading Dickinson’s poems and passing by the massive yellow home, situated not far from the center of Amherst, for the past four years, being inside feels somewhat surreal. Lucy summons us into the parlor: “Let’s get started.”

The parlor of the Dickinson home is, disappointingly, quite average and modern. In describing the history of the home, which was built by Emily Dickinson’s grandfather, Lucy reviews its various stages of ownership and renovation, including a brief stint as Amherst College faculty housing. The Museum has done its best to restore original aspects of the home, she tells us, but many of those projects are still works-in-progress. Lucy gestures to the portraits on the walls and gives a brief explanation of each member of the Dickinson family: her father, Edward, her mother, Emily, and her brother and sister: Austin and Lavinia. Winter sunlight streams in through one of the large windows and Lucy notes that during Dickinson’s lifetime, the home would have been far less “light and airy.” She leads us into the adjacent parlor room and continues regaling us with the Dickinson family history. After having invested a large amount of money into the fledgling Amherst College, Emily’s father, Edward, was forced to sell the family home and Emily and her siblings spent the majority of her childhood in a different home before returning to the hilltop colonial. Losing the home was a huge blow to Mr. Dickinson’s ego, Lucy tells us, and I nod along politely, having heard enough about wealthy white men’s bruised egos for a lifetime, tell us more about Emily, I silently implore her. As we move into the library, my secular prayer is answered.

The Dickinson’s library reflects most accurately how the house was decorated during Emily’s lifetime: the walls are covered in dark, forest green wallpaper and the wooden molding is dark. Lucy lifts up a copy of a Charles Dickens novel as she explains that Emily enjoyed reading the popular fiction of her time, including Dickens and the Brontë sisters. Quoting one of Dickinson’s letters, Lucy tells us that Mr. Dickinson often bought his daughter books but “begged her not to read them – because he fears they joggle the Mind.” It is also in this room that Lucy recounts the details of Dickinson’s correspondence with Thomas Higginson at The Atlantic Monthly, who had written an article directed to young artists who might be interested in having their work published. When Higginson suggested that Dickinson’s poems might need some work before she tries to have them published, Dickinson scoffed: “I smile when you suggest that I delay ‘to publish,’” she wrote, “that being foreign to my thought as firmament to fin.” Hearing how Dickinson used her sharp wit outside of her poetry piques my interest and I make eye contact with one of my friends in the group; we must read those letters.

The pièce de résistance of the tour is, of course, Emily Dickinson’s bedroom. When we reach the top of the staircase, Lucy stops us to explain that the room is currently being restored and gestures to the replicated furniture being stored in the hallway. She passes around copies of notes and poems Dickinson had written on envelopes and chocolate wrappers and we move into the room itself. The original floorboards have been exposed and the original ceiling re-installed but the room is still clearly far from being finished. Still, for an avid Dickinson-reader, the barren room retains an almost magical quality. “What surprises you all about this room?” Lucy asks. “There are a lot of windows,” I answer immediately. Though, as Lucy points out, the “Myth of Amherst,” as Emily Dickinson came to be known, was a myth largely created by her later publishers to establish an air of mystery rather than to transmit an entirely accurate history, Dickinson was an intensely private person. Though contained by the three fish-bowl-like windows, she was also able to look out and see who was coming to the front door, allowing her to refuse certain visitors as she was known to do. More than a place to watch family guests walk up the street from the train station though, this room was a space in which Dickinson could write. It was around the age of twenty-five, when the family moved back to their original home, that she began producing her most prolific works of poetry.

Unfortunately, the tour ends on a somewhat low note, at the Evergreens, the house built for Dickinson’s brother, Austin, and his family adjacent to the main home. Part of a bribe put forth by Edward Dickinson to get his son to stay in Amherst rather than move to Chicago, the towering home was apparently modeled after an Italian villa. As we enter into the cramped front hallway, Lucy instructs as to let our eyes adjust to the dark space and gestures to the variety of artwork that populates the walls. From snowy, romantic landscapes to “Oriental-style” artwork chosen by Austin’s wife, Susan, the paintings in the elaborate foyer are meant to show that the family was well-traveled and well-educated. Soon after Austin took over his father’s post as the treasurer of Amherst College, their home became the center of Amherst social life, Lucy explains, and Susan rejoiced in entertaining the College’s distinguished guests. Despite the tales of lively dinner parties, the house in its current condition calls to mind death. More so than the Dickinson home, which changed hands and was renovated many times throughout the years, the Evergreens has been kept as near to its original state as possible and it shows: knobs meant to hold up plaster are hammered into the walls at random intervals and there are cracks in the ceiling; the hallway has a cave-like quality. We end our tour in a room deemed “the death room,” where many of the deaths that made Emily Dickinson’s final years so oppressively sad took place. Lucy hands us all book marks and thanks us for our visit. We reply by thanking her for a lovely tour and I make quickly for the door.

Lucy’s tour was lovely and the Emily Dickinson Museum has made an admirable effort to bring to life the long-dead poet. However, the second half of the tour which focuses on the Evergreens Estate does perhaps too good a job at evoking the intensity and sadness that marked Dickinson’s life, especially her later years. As we open the front door I am thankful for the fresh air. “Just a turn,” I think, “and it’s freedom.”

Bibliography

Higginson, Thomas. “Emily Dickinson’s Letters.” Early Women Masters. EARLY WOMEN MASTERS EAST & WEST, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.