Monthly Archives: January 2016

Birkbeck 19th C Forum: Tuesday 26 January, ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: New Discoveries’ with Marta Weiss and Colin Ford

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Birkbeck Forum for Nineteenth-Century Studies
Spring 2016 Programme

The first event of the spring term for the Birkbeck Forum for Nineteenth-Century Studies will feature Marta Weiss (Victoria & Albert Museum) presenting on ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: New Discoveries’ with Colin Ford (Former head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television) responding. This event is presented in collaboration with the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre at Birkbeck, and will take place Tuesday 26 January 2016 from 6.00pm to 8.00pm in the Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD.

This seminar will explore the new material Martha Weiss discovered while researching the current must-see exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, marking the bicentenary of the birth of Julia Margaret Cameron, 150 years after she first exhibited her work there. Colin Ford has worked extensively on this important photographer, most notably in the comprehensive catalogue Julia Margaret Cameron: Complete Photos (Getty, 2002).

The session is free and all are welcome, but since the venue has limited space it will be first come, first seated.

For further information on the exhibition, see: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/julia-margaret-cameron/about-the-exhibition/

Download Julia Margaret Cameron: Complete Photos (Getty, 2002) here: http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/0892366818.html

For further information on the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre, see: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/photography

For further information on the Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, see: http://www.cncs.bbk.ac.uk/

Audio Recordings of Keynote Lectures from ‘The Arts and Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture’

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From the Birkbeck 19th C Forum website:

‘We are pleased to announce that audio recordings of Keynote Lectures are now available for ‘The Arts and Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture’, a major international conference which took place at Birkbeck, University of London, 16-18 July 2015.

The conference explored the ways in which nineteenth-century authors, artists, sculptors and musicians imagined and represented emotion and how writers and critics conceptualised the emotional aspects of aesthetic response. It aimed to map the state of the field in this growing area of interest for nineteenth-century scholars by locating recent interdisciplinary work on sentimentality and art and writing and the senses within wider debates about the relationship between psychology and aesthetics in the long-nineteenth century.

Speakers investigated the physiology and psychology of aesthetic perception and the mind/body interactions at play in the experience of a wide range of arts. Key questions included: How did Victorian artists represent feeling and how were these feelings aestheticised? What rhetorical strategies did Victorian writers use to figure aesthetic response? What expressive codes and conventions were familiar to the Victorians? Which nineteenth-century scientific developments affected artistic production and what impact did these have on affective reactions?’

To access the recordings and abstracts, click here.

Image of the Month: Caricature of Darwin and the crew of the Beagle

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painting-depicting-charles-darwin

Lot 10, ‘English Literature, History, Childrens’ Books and Illustrations’ Sale, 15 December 2015, Sotheby’s London. Earle, Augustus (attrib.) CARICATURE GROUP PORTRAIT ON BOARD HMS BEAGLE Watercolour, entitled “Quarter Deck of a Man of War on Diskivery [sic] or interesting Scenes on an Interesting Voyage”, depicting Darwin together with ten other figures, all crew members of HMS Beagle, including Robert FitzRoy and three other officers, shipboard with fossils, botanical and mineralogical specimens, some with captions, several figures with nautical and surveying instruments, each figure with a speech bubble with words written above in black ink, single sheet (340 x 205 mm), watercolour and ink on paper (Whatman Mill watermark, undated), [Bahía Blanca, Argentina, on or around 24 September, 1832]; some creasing and light staining, mounted. http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/english-literature-history-childrens-books-illustrations-l15408/lot.10.html

Last month, Sotheby’s in London sold for £52,500 the only known painting of the naturalist Charles Darwin aboard the HMS Beagle.

The watercolour, painted by Augustus Earle (1793–1838) was offered in the English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations sale in London. Darwin (giving a long-winded description of an insect), Captain Robert Fitzroy, and various officers and sailors are all depicted: it captures the bustle of Darwin’s historic expedition, while the speech bubbles hint at in-jokes and standing jokes from the voyage. An officer, thought to be 1st Lt John Clements Wickham, complains: “There is no such thing as walking the deck for all these cursed specimens!”

A zoomable digital image of the caricature is available on Sotheby’s website, along with an article on the caricature on Sotheby’s rare books blog Bibliofile.