Tennyson Reading 1865

Curator: Julia Margaret Cameron created this portrait titled "Tennyson Reading" around 1865. It's a gelatin-silver print, currently held here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: It has such a soft, dreamy quality. Almost like a painting attempting to mimic the effects of a photograph rather than the other way around! Curator: That softness is intentional, part of Cameron's distinct style. She embraced the imperfections of early photographic processes. These so-called 'flaws' created an ethereal, romantic look. Editor: Right, those "flaws" highlight the hand in the making, rejecting the industrial, mechanical precision that photography threatened to become. What about that book, its rough, visible texture gives this gelatin silver print a very real element of physicality and weight to an otherwise seemingly dreamlike image. I would imagine a reading as being both cerebral and physically active and taxing if one reads a long while; so, is she telling a deeper truth through the craft here? Curator: Indeed. Cameron was very conscious of her subjects' social standing. Tennyson, as Poet Laureate, represented intellectual and cultural authority. Positioning him as the intellectual father-figure to the Romantic arts ensured public demand for his art in the late 1800s as art for mass consumption developed rapidly. Editor: Interesting, considering the materiality too, that this object can be reproduced ad infinitum suggests it exists beyond the scope of his body; like an aura made tangible. Curator: Absolutely. Her portraits elevated figures to almost mythical status, contributing to a powerful cult of personality. Editor: I see it. By using this relatively new, reproducible technology, gelatin-silver printing, she's cementing a reputation for Tennyson at a pivotal moment in history: that poetry need not only live as scripture alone! She's playing with so many technologies here: craft, materiality and the culture industry around these new technologies. Curator: And through those technologies she crafts a legacy. Tennyson as the Romantic hero, forever captured in contemplative reading. Editor: An intellectual, an individual. And thanks to the photographic medium and how she has harnessed it, also, permanently, part of our cultural landscape.