Victorian photography, painting and poetry: the enigma of visibility in Ruskin, Morris and the pre-raphaelites

This book explores the intersections between Victorian literature, painting and photography. Taking as a starting point mid-nineteenth-century developmentsin the understanding of visual perception, Lindsay Smith examines the representation of a pervasive desire for a literal understanding of the process of seeing and perceiving. This is played out in the aesthetic theory of John Ruskin, the early poetry of William Morris, paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites, and inthe photographic technique of combination printing. She demonstrates how the novel presence of the camera in nineteenth-century culture not only transformsacts of looking, but also affects major social, aesthetic and philosophical categories. By exploring the intricacies of photographic discourse she shows how Ruskin and Morris produce a critique of the earlier Cartesian perspectival model of vision. INDICE: List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Ruskin, Morris and the (un)assertive eyes; 2. ‘Gaps on the mind’s shelves’: Ruskin’s theory of the grotesque; 3. ‘The seed of the flower’: photography and Pre-Raphaelitism; 4. ‘Where he cannot see, he will not venture far’: the critical reception of The Defence of Guenevere; 5. The optical agency of ‘Rapunzel’; 6. The politics of sight: The Defence of Guenevere and the optical determinants of medieval topography; 7. Coda: through yellow lenses; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

• ISBN: 978-0-521-05468-3
• Editorial: Cambridge University
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 264
• Fecha Publicación: 28/02/2008
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés