Getty Museum
Prayer and Praise
Creator
Julia Margaret CameronBritish Photographer · 1815–1879
All works by this person →After receiving a camera as a gift, Julia Margaret Cameron began her career in photography at the age of forty-eight. She produced the majority of her work from her home at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. By the coercive force of her eccentric personality, she enlisted everyone around her as models, from family members to domestic servants and local residents. The wife of a retired jurist, Camero
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1865
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- British
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- ca3eb352-a6ce-49e1-b0f4-b3397c492621
From the Getty Museum record
This image recreates the scene of the Nativity, in which Christ's mother, the Virgin Mary, and her husband Joseph watch over the newborn, sleeping Christ child. Julia Margaret Cameron may have decided to include a fourth figure, the young girl at the left, to add pictorial balance to the composition. The girl may represent an angel, as her outstretched hand hovering above the infant's head appears to be a gesture of blessing. The sleeping child's peaceful repose is emphasized by the contemplative silence of the surrounding figures. A spiritual calm is conveyed in the image by the adults' downcast eyes. Cameron powerfully evokes the mood of the Nativity scene through her careful, sensitive rendering of a sacred subject.
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