78

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COMMENT

All pictures © Royal Photographic Society

Collection at the National Media Museum

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE

NATIONAL MEDIA MUSEUM

Two new films examine the lives of several important figures in the

art world in Victorian times. Here Colin Harding looks at the way

art and photography were closely intertwined in the 19th century.

I

sn’t it just typical? You wait

ages for a film set in the 19th

century with a link to

photographic history – and

then two come along at once.

Recently released, both

Mr Turner and Effie Gray are

about the Victorian art world.

Several historic figures appear

on the cast list of both films and,

since at the time the worlds of

art and photography were so

closely intertwined, these

characters also played a key role

in the history of photography.

However, it is not a

photographer who is the link

between the characters in both

films but an artist. John Everett

Millais, one of the founders of

the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,

weaves together four other lives

in an intricate personal tapestry

• Sir Charles Eastlake, his wife
  Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, John
  Ruskin and his wife Euphemia
  (Effie) Gray.
  An early advocate of
  photography, the art critic
  John Ruskin once described
  the daguerreotype as a ‘blessed
  invention’. In 1848, he married
  Effie Gray, the daughter of family

friends. When he took his

beautiful young wife to Venice

the following year, he also took

along his photographic

equipment. In a letter home, Effie

described Ruskin in St Mark’s

Square ‘with a black cloth over

his head taking daguerreotypes.’

The marriage, however, was

doomed from the start. For

reasons which are still the

subject of speculation and debate

it was never consummated. The

couple remained together but

Effie became increasingly

depressed. Matters finally came

to a head in 1853 when the

Ruskins travelled to Scotland for

a holiday, accompanied by the

young John Everett Millais.

M

illais was to

become one of the

most famous and

successful British

artists of the 19th century. As

a celebrity, he was photographed

many times. However, probably

the most unusual and striking

portrait of him was taken in

the early 1860s by David Wilkie

Wynfield who posed him in

medieval costume as the Italian

‘An early advocate of photography, the art critic

John Ruskin once described the daguerreotype

as a ‘blessed invention’.’

Sir Charles Eastlake, fi rst president of the Royal Photographic Society, 1853. Lady Eastlake (Miss Rigby) by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, c.1845.

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