The fashionable substitute for belief - Page 2

garinda · 06-09-2005, 00:07

Yes Willow, not on line it was in the Sunday Times magazine years ago, but they must be still out there.

She was half dressed and draped in chiffon with a little posy of flowers and a garland. If someone took photographs of my neice like that, even if he was a Reverend, I'd be straight on the phone to the police.

WillowTheWhisp · 06-09-2005, 07:39

Sounds a bit like the image of a dryad or something like that from Narnia. Maybe that was what he was trying to capture. As A-b says it's difficult for us to understand what went on in those days when on the surface all was supposed to be so prim and proper but a girl of 12 was regarded as marriageable.

Was he courting Alice's sister or was he meeting the girls as an excuse to chat up one of the servants? Would such an age gap have been acceptable in Victorian society? Was it better to remain an old maid or to marry an old dodderer?

garinda · 06-09-2005, 09:37

She looked about six at the time, and although she was posed artfully in a garden and a studio, she was semi naked, with her bottom half drapen in transparent chiffon.

By today's standards they would be unacceptable. They make the sick American child beauty pagents look tame.

Neil · 06-09-2005, 09:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by garinda

They make the sick American child beauty pagents look tame.

I agree that they are sick rindy. Why would you want to do that to your little girl?

WillowTheWhisp · 06-09-2005, 10:20

I bet they weren't considered iffy by Victorian society. Probably in a similar vein to the naked baby in a tin bath ones. (Yikes there's one of me like that somewhere! - in a tin bath I mean!)

I've been looking at some of his photos and they vary from normal boring family portraits to others of a more artistic nature.

What I did find interesting in my reading however was a comment that once they were past a certain age his "special friendship" with children fizzled out. Now who does that remind you of?

garinda · 06-09-2005, 12:31

No even by Victorian standards apparently, eyebrows were raised about the sensuality of the photograhs and his obsession with the child, which as you said ceased when she reached puberty.

These weren't innocent 'kid on a rug' photographs that most of us had to endure, and are brought out to tease us later, they are as disturbing as the sexualisation of the American child beauty contests, were girls aged as young as three are made up to look like grown women and paraded in bathing suits.

WillowTheWhisp · 06-09-2005, 13:57

Oh right, different kettle of fish then.

Those child beauty pageants are so sick.

But his friendship with the family continued for a while after Alice was 6 didn't it? Wasn't she about 12 when those pages were written which are no longer there? I love mysteries.

garinda · 06-09-2005, 14:21

If you do a search on Google images for Alice Liddell, it does bring up some of the photograhs but not the mose provocative ones.

I worked on the film 'Dreamchild', with Coral Brown playing the part of the adult Alice Liddell. She certainly had an interesting and colourful life.

WillowTheWhisp · 06-09-2005, 14:33

Oh you knew Coral Browne! I absolutely adored her hubby, especially his voice. (friends of a friend of mine)

garinda · 06-09-2005, 14:38

Well l dressed her, she wasn't a friend........more of her skivvy, though she was very nice and I loved her in 'The Killing of Sister George.'

Acrylic-bob · 06-09-2005, 18:20

Funnily enough, she sat for another set of photographs by Dodgson when she was in her early twenties (1870), very prim and proper. She also sat for Julia Margaret Cameron.

Interesting thread wander, but this thread was originally about dear Oscar.

SPUGGIE J · 06-09-2005, 18:40

Blimey who needs the web when a-bob is on hand. Got to hand it to you thats some going.

garinda · 07-09-2005, 00:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob

Funnily enough, she sat for another set of photographs by Dodgson when she was in her early twenties (1870), very prim and proper. She also sat for Julia Margaret Cameron.

Interesting thread wander, but this thread was originally about dear Oscar.

Not really.

A spray of green carnations, perhaps a copy of De Profundis draped in a bit of lavender silk in a Church window= change in attitudes. End of.

He was dearer to me than you though. I have vivid recollections of meeting him in a house of ill repute whilst I was delivering a telegram. Or perhaps my pills need changing again.

WillowTheWhisp · 07-09-2005, 07:01

Meeting who? Oscar Wilde? You're looking well for your age Rindy.