Julia margaret cameron ophelia
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Only Ophelia
Kat Kiernan
Ophelia embodies tragic beauty. Her drowning is quiet, demure as she floats away to her watery demise. Even if one has not read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the character of Ophelia has become a part of our cultural vernacular. She has been immortalized as a beautiful but pitiful woman, remembered for going mad and picking flowers before drowning. While her death is not seen on stage, it is announced by Queen Gertrude, who describes how Ophelia fell into the river and drowned slowly by the weight of water on her clothes, too mad to save herself.
Perhaps because the scene is never played, artists have used this description to interpret Ophelia’s tragic end. Sir John Everett Millais, a Pre-Raphaelite painter, completed in 1852 what is perhaps the most famous Ophelia painting. Millais’ Ophelia was a 19-year-old woman named Elizabeth Siddall. To create the effect of drowning, she posed in a silver embroidered dress in a bath of water inside his
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Photograph of a standing woman, from the wiast up, with her loose hair grasped bygd her right hand.
Object details
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| Materials and techniques | Carbon print from kopia negative |
| Brief description | Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Ophelia', (sitter, Emily Peacock), carbon print, 1874, printed 1874-80 |
| Physical description | Photograph of a standing woman, from the wiast up, with her loose hair grasped bygd her right hand. |
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| Credit line | The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund. |
| Object history | Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) was one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century. Her photographs were rule-breaking: purposely out of focus, an • You know me, I can never leave anything alone. I am always up for a challenge and possibly the worst thing anyone can say to me is 'you probably won't find anything out about so-and-so.' Never tell me there is nothing to find, it's like a red rag to a bull. However, even I will admit that when it comes to history, women can be somewhat elusive, especially, and this really hacks me off, if they don't have anything to do with men. In terms of trace-ability, the worst thing a woman in the past could do was be middle-class and unmarried because you will vanish. With no trade records to find you or no children to treasure your memories, your footprint is a tad tiddy. You're not fighting in wars, you are not joining the Masons (well, not without a lot of questions being asked, like why has that mysterious new member 'Gerald' got a magnificent bosom?) and being the respectable daughter or some middle-class chap, you are not really working or doing anything th |