‘All possible devotion to poetry and beauty’ : comparative interpretations of the archetypal female character in early British narrative photography

Early British narrative photographs of sitters dressed as archetypal characters from literature, poetry, history and mythology have until now been seen primarily as unsuccessful anomalies in the oeuvres of well-known art photographers like Julia Margaret Cameron and Oscar G. Rejlander. Far from being awkward and infrequent aberrations, I argue these images were part of a wider experimental genre, which I am calling “fictive portraiture,” and were created by early photographers to reconcile their work with ‘High Art’ at a time when photography was rarely seen as an art in its own right. In this thesis, I examine social networks of artists and other creatives surrounding these images, placing the work of lesser-known photographers such as Lady Alice Kerr, E. P. Ogier, and William Despard Hemphill in context with well-known photographers like Cameron and Rejlander. I argue that rather than working in isolation, photographers undertaking fictive portraiture were often connected, collaborative, and inspired by each other’s work and concurrent art movements such as Pre-Raphaelitism. The majority of popular fictive portraiture subjects were archetypal female characters. Through three case studies, I examine how the archetypal characters of Rachel, Rebecca, and Ruth from the Old Testament in the traditional role of Matriarch, Joan of Arc and Judith of Bethulia in the nontraditional role of Female Patriot, and Elaine of Astolat and the Lady of Shalott in the vulnerability of Female Death not only reflect the wealthy Victorian world view, but can offer insight into the cultural moments in which these photographs were made. I also explore how portrayal of these women through fictive portraiture not only reflected Victorian societal expectations of middle- and upper-class women, but also how differences in portrayals of the same characters by male and female photographers lends insight into different interpretations of women’s expected roles.