Beyond the Frame Feminism and Visual Culture, Britain 1850 -1900

"Beyond the Frame" rewrites the history of "Victorian" art to explore the relationship between feminism and visual culture in a period of heady excitement and political struggle. In this rich and challenging study, Deborah Cherry discusses painting, sculpture, photography, engravings, embroidery and comic drawings of the period, to build a picture of how artists participated in the social upheaval of the day. The author explores how political activities such as campaigning for or against women's rights or speaking out on sexuality intervened in the visual languages of the day to create challenging new images of women.

Beyond the Frame rewrites the history of Victorian art to explore the relationships between feminism and visual culture in a period of heady excitement and political struggle. Artists were caught up in campaigns for women's enfranchisement, education and paid work, and many were drawn into controversies about sexuality. This richly documented and compelling study considers painting, sculpture, prints, photography, embroidery and comic drawings as well as major styles such as Pre-Raphaelitism, Neo-Classicism and Orientalism. Drawing on critical theory and post-colonial studies to analyse the links between visual media, modernity and imperialism, Deborah Cherry argues that visual culture and feminism were intimately connected to the relations of power.

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Introduction; Section 01 1 Artists and militants, 1850-66; Section 01-01-01 Artists and militants; Section 01-01-02 Geographies of art and feminism; Section 01-01-03 Modern women, modern life; Section 01-01-04 Writing women, art and feminism; Section 02 2 In/between the colonial theatre: visuality, visibility and modernity; Section 02-01-01 Shuttling, ‘soul making’ and the art of travel; Section 02-01-02 Modernity, visuality and visibility; Section 03 3 The ‘worlding’ of Algeria: feminism, imperialism and visual culture; Section 03-01-01 Worlding; Section 03-01-02 ‘a texting, textualising’: feminist subjects in the landscape; Section 03-01-03 ‘a making into art, a making into an object to be understood’; Section 04 4 Harriet Hosmer’s Zenobia: a question of authority; Section 04-01-01 Authorship and authority; Section 04-01-02 The making of a name and a statue; Section 04-01-03 Warrior queen, savant and woman of colour; Section 05 5 Tactics and allegories, 1866-1900; Section 05-01-01 Feminist politics and professional strategies; Section 05-01-02 Women, power, knowledge: the image of the learned woman in the 1860s; Section 05-01-03 Feminism and the tactics of representation; Section 05-01-04 Towards an allegorical reading; Appendix: selected publications on Algeria, 1857–68; Notes; Suggestions for further reading; Index;

Deborah Cherry is Professor of the Histoy of Art at the University of Sussex. Her previous publications include Painting Women: Victorian Women Artists (Routledge 1993).