This volume provides an introduction to the diverse field of visual culture in the 19th century. It surveys major changes in the field taking into account photography, theatrical practice, changing land- and cityscapes as well as new technologies for entertainment and information. The inventions and discoveries of the period revolutionized methods of cultural production, provoked new intentions in representation and radically altered the experience of the visual in art as well as everyday life. Hence people had to adapt to new perceptions and their habitual ways of seeing were challenged. At the same time they carved out new positions for themselves vis a vis the visual, defining new identities as spectators and observers. In addition to the introductory overview, the volume offers a collection of articles which concentrate on less well-known aspects of Victorian visual culture, seeking to contribute an explanation in the context of the larger political, thus seeking to disclose new vantage points for explanations in the of the larger political, ideological and psychological context of the era.

A highly illustrated account of Darwin's visual representations of his theories, and their influence on Victorian literature, art and culture, first published in 2006.

The nineteenth century was a period of science and imagery: when scientific theories and discoveries challenged longstanding boundaries between animal, plant, and human, and when art and visual culture produced new notions about the place of the human in the natural world. Just as scientists relied on graphic representation to conceptualize their ideas, artists moved seamlessly between scientific debate and creative expression to support or contradict popular scientific theories--such as Darwin's theory of evolution and sexual selection--deliberately drawing on concepts in ways that allowed them to refute popular claims or disrupt conventional knowledges. Focusing on the close kinship between the arts and sciences during the Victorian period, the art historians contributing to this volume reveal the unique ways in which nineteenth-century British and American visual culture participated in making science, and in which science informed art at a crucial moment in the history of the development of the modern world. Together, they explore topics in geology, meteorology, medicine, anatomy, evolution, and zoology, as well as a range of media from photography to oil painting. They remind us that science and art are not tightly compartmentalized, separate influences. Rather, these are fields that share forms, manifest as waves, layers, lines, or geometries; that invest in the idea of the evolution of form; and that generate surprisingly kindred responses, such as pain, pleasure, empathy, and sympathy.

This collection of essays sets out to challenge the dominant narrative about Victorian theatre by placing the practices and products of the Victorian theatre in relation to Victorian visual culture, through the lens of the concept of 'Ruskinian theatre', an approach to theatre which values its educative purpose as well as its aesthetic expression.

Kimberly Rhodes's interdisciplinary book is the first to explore fully the complicated representational history of Shakespeare's Ophelia during the Victorian period. In nineteenth-century Britain, the shape, function and representation of women's bodies were typically regulated and interpreted by public and private institutions, while emblematic fictional female figures like Ophelia functioned as idealized templates of Victorian womanhood. Rhodes examines the widely disseminated representations of Ophelia, from works by visual artists and writers, to interpretations of her character in contemporary productions of Hamlet, revealing her as a nexus of the struggle for the female body's subjugation. By considering a broad range of materials, including works by Anna Lea Merritt, Elizabeth Siddal, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais, and paying special attention to images women produced, Rhodes illuminates Ophelia as a figure whose importance crossed class and national boundaries. Her analysis yields fascinating insights into 'high' and mass culture and enables transnational comparisons that reveal the compelling associations among Ophelia, gender roles, body image and national identity.

London has provided the setting and inspiration for a host of literary works in English, from canonical masterpieces to the popular and ephemeral. Drawing upon a variety of methods and materials, the essays in this volume explore the London of Langland and the Peasants' Rebellion, of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan stage, of Pepys and the Restoration coffee house, of Dickens and Victorian wealth and poverty, of Conrad and the Empire, of Woolf and the wartime Blitz, of Naipaul and postcolonial immigration, and of contemporary globalism. Contributions from historians, art historians, theorists and media specialists as well as leading literary scholars exemplify current approaches to genre, gender studies, book history, performance studies and urban studies. In showing how the tradition of English literature is shaped by representations of London, this volume also illuminates the relationship between the literary imagination and the society of one of the world's greatest cities.

The nineteenth century was a period of science and imagery: when scientific theories and discoveries challenged longstanding boundaries between animal, plant, and human, and when art and visual culture produced new notions about the place of the human in the natural world. Just as scientists relied on graphic representation to conceptualize their ideas, artists moved seamlessly between scientific debate and creative expression to support or contradict popular scientific theories—such as Darwin’s theory of evolution and sexual selection—deliberately drawing on concepts in ways that allowed them to refute popular claims or disrupt conventional knowledges. Focusing on the close kinship between the arts and sciences during the Victorian period, the art historians contributing to this volume reveal the unique ways in which nineteenth-century British and American visual culture participated in making science, and in which science informed art at a crucial moment in the history of the development of the modern world. Together, they explore topics in geology, meteorology, medicine, anatomy, evolution, and zoology, as well as a range of media from photography to oil painting. They remind us that science and art are not tightly compartmentalized, separate influences. Rather, these are fields that share forms, manifest as waves, layers, lines, or geometries; that invest in the idea of the evolution of form; and that generate surprisingly kindred responses, such as pain, pleasure, empathy, and sympathy.