Though a digital lens

Part 1

Discuss a photograph that takes an existing work of art as its starting point. Write a 500 word reflection on your chosen piece in your learning log.

Prosperine (1874) Gabrielle Rosetti

Fig 1: Prosperine (1874)

I came across this image in every charity bookshop I visited. I was planning to use this for part one, until research led me to an exhibition the Tate had run last year called Painting with Light (2016). I also discovered Minna Keene (Observation 1: Pomegranates 1905) had made a different photograph using the same painting as a basis which is mislabelled as Zaida Ben Yusuf's photograph by more than one site on the internet, questioning the truth of the internet as an archive.

Rosetti made 8 paintings of this, not being satisfied with his original attempt. He wrote to WA Turner, a customer in 1877 explaining the meaning behind the Greek myth which led him to paint the picture. William Morris suggested to Rosetti that painting Morris's wife as a representation of this myth would work as it was similar to their own lives. In mythology, Persiphone ate a pomegranate given to her by Hades resulting in her spending part of the year in the underworld.

The painting contains several signifiers :

Pomegranate - marriage, fertility, seeds indicate number of children (in this case number of months to spend with Hades in another world)

Ivy - perennial life, immortality, strong affectionate attachment

Gloomy corridor - trapped in her own world

light in the middle of the painting = passage to another place

Wrist angle - submissive

Facial expression - resentment

“The odor of pomegranates” (1899) Zaida Ben Yusuf 

Fig 2. The odor of pomegranates (1899)

Zaida Ben Yusuf (1869-1933)

Born in London to a German mother and Algerian father. She became an American citizen working in a portrait studio on 5^th Ave New York with work published in magazines and exhibiting in photography exhibitions.

Ben Yusuf photographed artists, actors, writers and political people in her studio. As part of the International Photography Congress in Paris (1900), Frances Benjamin Johnson presented 142 photographs by 28 women photographers, which also exhibited in Moscow. This image featured amongst her exhibited work In 1901 she was voted one of 6 “Foremost Women Photographers of America” by the Ladies Home Journal.

This publication was influential to middle class American women, inspiring them to recreate the images and develop a style of photographs representative of the Pictorialist movement who favoured beauty over reality. By using a soft blur, the image was similar to paintings.

Comparing the“The odor of pomegranates” with Dante Gabrielle Rosetti’s “Prosperine” (1874) both study a young woman looking at a pomegranate. In Rosetti’s painting the pomegranate is partially eaten suggesting that the fruit is reflecting regret about Rosetti’s love life (see above). Ben Yusuf’s uneaten fruit explores temptation (such as in Adam and Eve’s forbidden apple) seductiveness and desire. The averted gaze and expression suggests intimacy. Ben Yusuf’s subject is a study of form. The folded light drapes and pale skin contrast with the patterned drapes of the curtain, creating an emphasis on light and shadow. Rosetti captured the light in a different way - to show the gloomy life 

she shared with William Morris (her husband) and the bright light she could go to with Hades (Rosetti) with whom she shared an intimate relationship. The pomegranate seeds would normally represent fertility and the number of children the woman would have. In this case it refers to spending 6 months with Hades.

Part 2

Next remake an existing work of art using photography.

Figure 3 Hering, H (1856-7) Florence Nightingale

Illustrations

Figure 1. Rosetti, Dante. (1874)  Prosperine. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rossetti-proserpine-n05064 last accessed 2/4/17

Figure 2. Yusuf, Zaida. (1899) The odor of pomegranates. [online] Available at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/zaida/gallery/newwoman01.html last accessed 2/4/17
Figure 3 Hering, H (1856-7) Florence Nightingale [photograph] Available at:  https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw111411/Florence-Nightingale?LinkID=mp03298&wPage=0&role=sit&rNo=10 Last accessed 26/2/18

Bibliography

Crompton, S. (2016) She takes a good picture: six forgotten pioneers of female photography. Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/06/underexposed-the-forgotten-female-pioneers-of-photography last accessed 2/4/17

Kerr, M. (2016) How photography and painting focused the Victorian mind. Apollo International Art Magazine. Available at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/how-photography-and-painting-focused-the-victorian-mind/ lasst accessed 2/4/17

Lawson, S. (1995) Dopplegangers. Available at: http://wendymcmurdo.com/text/dopplegangers/ last accessed 2/4/2017

Linssen, D. (2007-2017)  American Women Photographers 1900-1940. Oxford Art online Available at: http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/page/benz/themes/AmericanWomenPhotographers last accessed 2/4/17

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (n.d.) Zaida Ben Yusuf. [online] Available at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/zaida/gallery/newwoman01.html last accessed 2/4/17

O'Hagan, S. (2012) Hisaji Hara review. The Observer. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/feb/26/hisaji-hara-photography-hoppen-review last accessed 2/4/17

Tate (2016) Painting with light: Art and photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the modern age. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/painting-light last accessed 2/4/17

Tate (2016) People behind the pictures - Painting with light. Availabe at: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/people-behind-pictures-painting-with-light

last accessed 2/4/17

Tate (n.d.) Prosperine. Dante Gabrielle. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rossetti-proserpine-n05064 last accessed 2/4/2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJQYSPFo7hk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-XnQ2Wsxl8