Two artists, separated by a century and an ocean, laid out a framework for how the camera could construct feminine identity. In 1800s England, Julia Margaret Cameron took pictures of garlanded Victorian beauties dressed as mythological figures, lying wantonly and forlornly on divans. In 1970s America, Francesca Woodman created a world of blurry nude art students thrashing about in warehouses. Despite the vast chasms of time, aesthetics and subject matter that separated the two, the National Portrait Gallery argues that they shared so much as to be almost inseparable. It’s not hugely convincing.
Cameron’s sepia portraiture is heavily symbolic. Cherubs embrace, saints pray, prophetesses wander about in their cloaks. She creates a private, almost secret world populated only by women, she dips into the classical past to present modern images where the gaze is female, and directed inwards. It shares plenty with the Pre-Raphaelites, but with a more quiet, introspective presence. Some of it is beautiful and ethereal, lots of it (those cherubs, yikes) isn’t.
Woodman died at just 22, but not before creating a frenetic body of tormented black and white photography. She had a knack for the stark and minimal, the blurred and the vulnerable. Bodies writhe in crumbling rooms, paint peels, faces hide in shadow. Lots of the images are striking, gorgeous, experimental, clever. But plenty of others are also – understandably – very studenty.
Some of it is beautiful and ethereal, lots of it (those cherubs, yikes) isn’t.
So why show these two together? There’s a definite influence here, and an occasional similarity of theme. But when you start the exhibition by showing two works next to each other just because they both feature umbrellas you know you’re clutching at curatorial straws.
Not only is not much gained by showing these two artists side by side, but so much is lost. You spend your time drawing parallels and finding links instead of just taking the artists on their merit. You can’t lose yourself in either’s body of work because you’re too busy trying to understand why they’ve been whacked in the same room.
Cameron’s bigger works dominate Woodman’s smaller scale approach, her ethereal floweriness overwhelms Woodman’s wispy ghostliness. It just doesn’t work. You leave feeling like this could, and should, have been two separate exhibitions.