This semester I took the most incredible class- Victorian Legacies! Totally blew my mind. We read the history of the Victorian era, novels from the period (including but not limited to A Christmas Carol, Jane Eyre, The Difference Engine, etc). I found myself in a lot of it (as you'll see in the following essay). Our final semester project was to come up with a Neo-Victorian interpretation of something. We researched, had to write several papers, and then created our project. The following is my research and, consequently, the thinking behind my project:
(If you wish to skip to the pictures, scroll to the bottom of this post)
The Real Victorians by Linda Davis
When asked what first comes to mind when asked to think about Victorians most people would probably mention elaborate clothes, fancy houses, and strict social rules. Common conceptions of Victorians are that they were a stiff, stuffy group of people. However, this is not entirely true. The homepage of neovictorianstudies.com shows “Travelling Companions,” a painting by Augustus Leopold Egg, which explores modernity’s relationship with Victorians. However, this photograph shows the typical portrayal: the Victorian is stiff-backed, somber and proper, while her modern counterpart is slumped back, unconscious of the world passing her by. I do not believe that this is an entirely accurate portrayal of either side, but particularly of the Victorian. Victorians are not so different from us. Beneath the façade of lace and silk, Victorians were real people with real feelings and emotions. Since we have no physical evidence of these real Victorians, I decided to create some photographs of the real Victorians.
I had a similar view of Victorians before I knew much about them. When my aunt told me I reminded her of Jane Eyre, I was offended. What could I have in common with a stuffy 19th century woman who marries a jerk with a crazy wife locked in a tower? Actually, a lot. Jane Eyre is a young woman trying to make a place in the world for herself. She is dedicated to learning and educating herself, and she is not afraid to stand by her morals even when it would be easier not to. I too have dedicated myself to learning both inside and outside the academic realm. I also have a very stalwart moral compass. Jane and I share a passion for reading and find escape in it. Shortly after realizing these previously unknown similarities between us I began to wonder what else was wrong in my ideas of the Victorians. It was time for me to “see [them] with greater accuracy and individuality” (Holland 46). It was time to see them as real people and not just mythical historical figures.
As I began examining the Victorians as real people not just stuffy old prudes, I looked at photo after photo and began to see a pattern. Almost all the pictures looked the same. Somber face, full body framing. All of the photographs seemed planned, set up. These stiff, somber images did not fit with my new perception of Victorians like Jane Eyre. In his essay “Authenticity and Charm: The Revival of Victorian Photography” Alan Thomas describes “‘reading’ of photographs in order to construct general ideas about Victorian life” (106). In my ‘readings’ of the photographs I looked at, I could not find much of the spunky Victorians I had discovered in my literary readings. Where were the pictures of the real Victorians?
Some explanations as to why there were no pictures of the real Victorians came as I delved into the history of photography during their era. Elizabeth Heyert writes that “portrait photography became yet another method to promote the ideal and to shield… any character flaws which might exist” (36). Because photographs were easy to manipulate in terms of setting up the shots and destroying any unwanted images, photography provides an easy outlet to craft a desired perception. (This is still seen today in advertising.) The “very strict decorum of costume, occasion and pose governed its [the photographs’] contents” (Thomas 104) create an illusion for a modern viewer of the Victorians as a generation of “calm, self-satisfied decency” (Holland 45). Their era had strict social graces that required this decency to be promoted in public at all times. However, because these governed their photographs, that has become the modern reality of the Victorians.
This misperception of Victorians as merely stuffy old prudes is not entirely the fault of the photographers nor those that commissioned their photographs. Part of the problem that perpetuated the images of stuffy old prudes typically seen of Victorians was their limited photographic technologies and processes. Although a photograph taken today by a modern digital camera requires only a tiny fraction of a second for its exposure time, such was not the case for the Victorians. Even at their best, Victorian photographs required a minimum of several seconds with the most common forms of photography requiring closer to one to three minutes. Have you ever tried to hold a smile completely still for three minutes? Not very easy. Thus, photographers had them pose stiffly and somberly to enable them to keep the pose for the required exposure time. However, with today’s technology that allows a photograph to be taken in a fraction of a second, pictures can be taken without the subject’s awareness. This results in a softened expression and a glimpse into the real person. These photographs go beyond the “say cheese” mentality of photographing to capture real people being themselves.
Victorians also have “bequeathed a number of technically unnecessary conventions to later generations of photographers” (Thomas 104). Some of these technically unnecessary conventions that have remained even today are things like “rigorous ordering into groups” for mass compositions “in which subordinates and dependents radiate outward from the centre of authority” (Thomas 104). This is utilized today in almost all mass compositions- military groups, large families, etc. Other conventions common to the Victorians was the very direct, head on portrait approach. Most portraits were taken from either a very frontal angle or a slight turn and almost always had a large enough scope to depict the entire person: “Figures are frequently placed in the middle distance” a convention that “would prove intolerably wearisome for modern eyes” because we are so accustomed to varied angles and focal distances (Thomas 109). This monochromatic setup is one of the reasons that so many Victorian photographs look the same; they are pretty much the same. “Their compositional types were conservative and influenced by the pictorial tradition” (Seiberling 46). This is not the case today. Compositional types are varied, and this variation has widened the scope of photography by allowing the viewer to see things a unique way.
Where am I supposed to find the real Victorians when they do not exist? I will make them. In my pictures, I tried to take more candid pictures, ones that captured the Victorians in everyday life. I varied their expressions from happy to sad to thoughtful. Several different compositions were used to break out of the Victorian mold of the “pictorial tradition” (Seiberling 46)- middle ground, far ground, close up. I also tried to break out of the old convention of placing the male figure in the middle and “in which subordinates and dependents radiate outward from the centre of authority” (Thomas 104). This was actually really unnatural to do. My natural instinct told me to place him in the middle and then arrange the girls around him. However, it is time to create new Victorians, so that just would not do. Using photoshop I changed both the saturation and color tones of the pictures both to create more variety in the Victorians and to brighten them up. I tried to make the Victorians real people with real feelings instead of the stuffy, stiff people they are so often made out to be.
It is time to create a “ ‘different’ version of the Victorian,” one that “capture[s] something of the life of that era, to discuss its events and personalities” (Llewellyn 165-166). The personalities of the Victorian era were much like us. They did smile and laugh. That is the version of the Victorians I want. In her essay “On Photography,” Susan Sontag says that there is a “sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs” (14).We cannot return to the Victorian era. We cannot know for certain what they were really like. But we can find bits of ourselves in them. Why with photography? Because photographs have a power to “alter and enlarge our notions” (Sontag 1). This is exactly what the Victorians need, or rather what we need to do for the Victorians. Expand our perceptions. Look beyond the corset and top hat and see that we are not so different from them.
And now, the project:
Click Here for The Real Victorians!
