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ARTISTS’ STUDIES
In a paper read in London in 1863, Oscar Rejlander
touched on his practice of photographing models in
the poses of fi gures in paintings by Raphael, Titian,
Rubens and others.” “I believe photography will make
painters better artists and more careful draughtsmen,”
he affi rmed. Five years later, a contributor to the Art
Journal commented: “We hear that Mr Rejlander’s
avowed object and intention is to produce what may
prove useful as studies to younger artists.” “There may
sometimes ... be instances (e.g. the folds of drapery)
where such assistance ... might prove of great help,”
he continued, “but we are far from recommending any
who would hereafter produce works that shall live, to
lean for assistance in any way upon photographic stud-
ies, or upon aught else than originals.” Julia Margaret
Cameron’s contemporaneous photographs “after the
manner of” Francia, Perugino and Raphael evoke paint-
ings by those artists, rather being literal studies. On the
other hand, Cameron’s images of Mary and the infant
Jesus and of Beatrice Cenci have the character of art-
ists’ studies, for the heavy garments worn by the models
recall sculptural drapery studies made by artists of the
Renaissance. Cameron’s photographs of models posed
like two of the British Museum Parthenon sculptures
fall directly into the category of artists’ studies; indeed,
one of the photographs is entitled Teachings from the
Elgin Marbles. Clementina Hawarden’s “studies from
life” of her daughters likewise appear to be as much
concerned with pose and dress as with portraiture or
narrative. The foregoing observations point to the exis-
tence of two overlapping categories of artists’ studies:
photographs intended to replicate painted models or to
emulate an artist’s style; and photographs made to be
used by artists in their training and practice. It is also
important to distinguish between photographs made
expressly for artists’ use and photographs that were
appropriated and used in ways that the photographer
had not anticipated.
The practice of making studies to assist artists is
almost as old as photography itself. The partnership
between David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson was
initiated with a view to producing portrait studies of the
Free Church ministers for Hill to use when he came to
execute his historical painting The Signing of the Deed of
Demission. Hill also used photographs to assist him with
the execution of other paintings. For Edinburgh from the
Castle, he relied on a calotype for the architecture in
the central area of the view; in addition, the foreground
of the picture is fi lled with numerous fi gures—Gordon
Highlanders, Newhaven fi shwives etc.—based on well
known photographs by the partners. The painter David
Roberts also used Hill and Adamson’s photographs
of Newhaven fi sherwomen for his contemporaneous
panorama of Edinburgh from the Castle. Other photo-
graphs by Hill and Adamson, such as one showing Lady
Ruthven from behind, are drapery or costume studies as
much as portraits. The partners also produced at least
one nude study of a model holding a studio pose. In
“The Calotype,” an article published in July 1843, Hugh
Miller wrote specifi cally about the potential usefulness
of the Hill and Adamson calotypes for the visual arts,
discussing particularly a portrait of Thomas Chalmers
and a view of George Street, Edinburgh, with the church
of St Andrew and St George, where the Disruption of
the Church of Scotland began in May 1843.
John Ruskin recognised the usefulness of photographs
for the study of architecture. On a visit to Tuscany in
1846 he supplemented his own drawings by purchasing
daguerreotypes, which he called “glorious things.” “It
is very nearly the same thing as carrying off the palace
itself,” he wrote to his father, “every chip of stone &
stain is there—and, of course, there is no mistake about
proportions.” On his return to England Ruskin executed
a watercolour from a daguerreotype of Santa Maria della
Spina in Pisa in order to compensate for the diffi culty
of viewing the mirror-like plate.
Drawing from the nude model was central to the
practice of artists trained in the academic tradition in
Europe and North America during the nineteenth cen-
tury. It is, therefore, not surprising that photographers
worked from the nude and produced nude studies for
the use of artists. In France Eugène Durieu producedNadar, Gustave Dore.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles © The J. Paul Getty
Museum.