An idealised mood of humility and gratitude appealed to picture-buying landowners of the 18th Century when the legislation left the poor more dependent on the generosity of employers and charities.
The work is a time travelled image of Gainsborough’s character into a present day imaginary setting; A cinematic approach with direct references to diCorcia’s vision of “people as puppets” and Lynch’s dystopian suburban fantasies as portrayed by Gregory Crewdson.
An unresolved story about living on the edge and not by choice.
Dialogue with Art
Details
Rogue Artists Studios 2011
Rogue
Photography and the Taboo of Death by CM Brosteanu
Artists’ interest in mortality can be seen in work from Hans Holbein’s 16th-century The Ambassadors, in which a skewed skull comments on the vanity of the sitters, to Damien Hirst’s recent diamond encrusted skull.
In ‘Self Portrait as a Drowned Man’, Hippolyte Bayard for instance theatrically staged his own death as early as 1840. Bayard’s fascination with his own death reflects a fetishist attitude towards death photographers have explored ever since.
Today death has become a forbidden subject. As the common practice of post-mortem photography in North America and Western Europe has largely ceased, the portrayal of such images has become increasing seen as vulgar. But is the contemporary photography of the dead forensic record, sensationalism or art?
From the beginning of photography’s history, photographers have depicted death and 19th century daguerreotypes show dead infants fully clothed and posed. These photographs served less as a reminder of mortality than as a keepsake to remember the deceased.
Death is not viewed as a taboo but rather as something that is almost a celebration of life. The subject is usually depicted so as to seem in a deep sleep, or else arranged to appear more lifelike. (Fig.1)
Photographs of dead relatives were openly displayed in the home and were sent to friends and relatives unable to attend funeral services. Victorian era childhood mortality rates were extremely high, and a post-mortem photograph might have been the only image of the child the family ever had. (Williams, 1995)
Fig.1 - Unknown
The practice peaked in popularity around the end of the 19th century and died out as “snapshot” photography became more commonplace, although a few examples of formal memorial portraits were still being produced well into the 20th century. Read more…
The Influence of The Exotic in Early Erotic Photography by CM Brosteanu
Before 1835 images of nude women generally consisted of drawings and paintings that were displayed on the walls of galleries and in private collections.
When the new technology of photography appeared it was quickly adopted by artists, anxious for new ways to depict the uncovered feminine form.
In the chaste climate of the 19th century the only officially accepted photography of the body was for the production of artist’s studies.
However, many photographs were produced as erotic images for the ‘discerning gentleman.’ There was a lot of money to be made by entrepreneurs of the day who sold these ‘daring’ images to those who could afford them. (Forde, 2007)
The pictures were also traded by women in the streets who hid them under their dresses and near train stations by traveling salesmen. They were often created in sets and exported abroad, mainly to United States and England.
By 1855, the photographic nudes were no longer being registered as study material and the business had gone underground to escape prosecution. Therefore, the development of a reliable international postal system helped the erotic photography trade expansion.
In France and England the photographers often hired burlesque actresses as models for semi-nude and nude photographs. The French did a great trade selling erotic postcards to American tourists. These would now be called soft-core, but they were quite scandalous for that time.
Postcard and photography are mid nineteenth century inventions, and photography was used for postcards on a huge scale only about 1900 (Fig.1). Millions of postcards from the first decades of the century attest to the great curiosity of Europeans, at home and abroad, regarding the colonies and its native inhabitants. (Corbey, 1988)
A very important category of these postcards is constituted by pictures of African women, revealing an erotic interest from the side of male, European spectators.
- Fig.1 – J. Geiser, “Alger”
The Golden Age of the colonial postcards lies between 1900 and 1930 and the history knows of no other society in which women have been photographed on such a large scale to be presented to public view like the Algerians. Read more…
