In a digital age where we are accustomed to the high-definition photograph, the Morgan Library & Museum’s exhibition Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron illuminates the shadows of photographic history, reminding viewers that the beauty of photography as a medium transcends mere realism. Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron opened on May 30th and is on view through September 14th, 2025. The exhibit’s curators commemorate the esteemed works of 19th-century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 C.E. to 1879 C.E.). Cameron’s portfolio, although characterized by the indistinct elements of blurry line-work, ambiguous allusions, and foggy silhouettes, manages to elicit a strikingly distinct historical narrative that leaves visitors with a haunting rush of emotion–even a century later.
“She [Cameron] had an unconventional style. Although to be fair, she was certainly an unconventional woman,” remarked Jen, an exhibit viewer whom I had the opportunity to speak. Unconventional Cameron undoubtedly was; her photographic upbringing is perhaps just as unorthodox as her photographs. Born in 1815, in what is now Kolkata, India, to an elite colonial family, Cameron grew up immersed in Victorian art culture, but its conventions didn’t seem to captivate her nor fulfill her eccentric creative vision. Indeed, Cameron, despite now being deemed a pillar of photographic history, spent the vast majority of her life detached from the artistic world, immigrating to London, getting married, and having children all before her fingertips ever grazed a camera lens.
It was only in 1863, at the age of 48, when Cameron received her first camera as a gift from her eldest daughter, Julia, that her innate artistic genius truly came to light. The gift appeared to spark an awakening, as Cameron found herself instantaneously enthralled by the craft of photography: “From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour, and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour,” she later reflected in her memoir, Annals of My Glass House. Her sweeping imagination soon began to produce imagery in harmony with her lens.
Cameron found herself deviating from all that was considered standard, not necessarily as a consequence of an ardent desire to rebel, but rather one of a genuine indifference to societal expectation. 19th-century photography was characterized by objectivity; the camera was intended to capture the unwavering truth with in-focus, pristine images. Conversely, Cameron’s portraits were intentionally “flawed”: out of focus, unevenly developed, and occasionally bearing the physical traces of her hands.
Annie (1864), the portrait that Cameron classified as the “first success” of her photographic career, is an early manifestation of the pillars of her esoteric photographic technique. The hazy image of Annie Wilhemina Philpot, the daughter of Cameron’s neighbor, Reverand William Benamin Philpot, engulfs the frame, with an indistinguishable collage of black and white constituting the minimal negative space. Annie’s expression is seemingly dull; though the details of her right eye are almost entirely obscure, her gaze appears to be drawn to a sight outside of the frame.
While not a typical studio portrait with uniform lighting and a frontal, smiling facial profile that her father likely expected, Annie (1864), in its blurriness and faint details, offers an undoubtedly captivating, lively visual. No one, however, was quite as shocked at the beauty of the image as Cameron herself, who, after developing the film, entered a state of pure merriment. Commemorating this moment, Cameron, in her memoir, wrote that she, “was in a transport of delight. I ran all over the house to search for gifts for the child. I felt as if she [Annie] entirely had made the picture.”
Cameron yielded a unique affinity and tenderness for the subjects in her photographs, who were often figures in her everyday life. Notably, Mary Hillier, Cameron’s maid, whom Cameron called “one of the most beautiful and constant” of her models, is an unmistakably recurring face throughout the exhibit. Unlike many of her peers in the gentry, Cameron did not hesitate to empower those who worked for her, including Hillier.
Dismissing notions of social hierarchy, she chose to portray Hillier with power and agency, casting her as a central heroine in the artistic narratives she crafted. In Cameron’s lens, Hillier was transformed into queens, saints, sibyls, and goddesses–defining characters in the mythic and literary tableaux that shaped the Victorian imagination. For instance, the work Call, I Follow, I Follow. Let Me Die! (1867), a striking side profile shot of Hillier, is a reference to an Arthurian legend, the Matter of Britain. Hillier, dramatic and commanding in presence, is intended to symbolize the legend’s “tragic heroine”, Elaine of Astolat. (See the featured image of Call, I Follow, I Follow. Let Me Die! (1867) at the top of this article).
While Hillier remained a favored muse, Cameron also turned her lens toward a wide array of models. At the very entrance of the exhibition, a deep burgundy wall displays a curated set of six portraits that immediately highlights the diversity of her subjects, ranging in age, class, and character. Bathed in a sepia glow, these six portraits by Cameron whisper with an almost unsettling intensity and combination of emotions, each one a meticulous balance of shadow and light. In the Annunciation (1865-66), the children, luminous and taken by grim expressions, embody innocence laced with melancholy. The elderly man, depicted in The Astronomer (1867), with his wild hair, eyes of unrest, and furrowed brow, becomes a reflection of brilliance verging on madness.
Cameron’s signature soft focus blurs the line between realism and surrealism; her images are dreamlike, intimate, and deeply psychological. Using long exposures and natural light, she was able to craft the depth of her photographs with the sensitivity of a painter, aiming to reflect the convoluted nature of human emotion. “Everything in her portraits appears living. There’s action even in the stillness,” said Monica, another visitor with whom I had the chance to speak.
We tend to perceive photography as a relatively technical art form; great photographers are those able to effortlessly obtain the perfect angle, lighting, and camera settings. Cameron’s ability, though, was fundamentally in storytelling, yielding the miraculous talent to capture an anecdote within a single tableau and even harder within a single image. She famously wrote in Annals of My Glass House that she sought to “arrest all beauty that came before me [her],” marking the origins of the exhibit title.
Mary, another visitor with whom I spoke, marveled at “the tenderness and the intimacy” of Cameron’s works, as her eyes danced across the exhibit. Cameron yearned to capture the fleeting visions of the imagination, the dreamlike imagery that dances across our minds as we read, speak, and listen, but can never quite define. Burten, the last visitor with whom I spoke, remarked, “I mean, she’s a storyteller. She definitely did things her way. A good way, that is.”
In particular, as a devoted Christian, she had a passion for recreating biblical scenes. Her portfolio is rich with imagery extracted directly from The Bible as well as less recognizable religious allusions (many of which remain unknown). Particularly intriguing is The Angel at the Tomb (1870), which draws on Matthew 28:2–3. In Matthew 28:2–3, an angel descends from heaven to greet the two Marys at Christ’s tomb–his face “like lightning” and his garments “white as snow.” Cameron reimagines this moment with characteristic boldness, casting Hillier in the role of the angel. Shrouded in soft white fabric and bathed in radiant light, Hillier’s face glows with transcendence, reflecting “a certain Biblical sensibility and spirituality,” according to an exhibit visitor named (ironically) Mary.
The single societal convention that Cameron appeared to uphold, at least in theory, was that of gender. To her, male virtue was intellect, genius, and public achievement, as evidenced by the exhibition’s section dedicated solely to her portraits of “famous men,” including pioneering figures like Charles Darwin. By contrast, “Cameron’s heroines” were women who embodied beauty, piety, and quiet endurance–qualities that the Victorian patriarchy idealized in women. Cameron admired women who, in the exhibit’s words, “remained charitable, loving, and pious even in their suffering.”
Naturally, Cameron, a true radical, even defied her own expectations. Cameron’s existence betrayed the very gendered ideals in which she seemed to fervently believe. As a successful, respected career woman operating in a male-dominated field, Julia Margaret Cameron shattered the boundaries of her era’s suffocating sexist expectations. “Having male poets, scientists, and literary figures really respect her is a miraculous feat,” remarked exhibit visitor Burten.
Ultimately, Cameron was not only a visionary photographer but a radical figure in her own right–an individual who, knowingly or not, rewrote the script for what a woman and artist could be. So, take the 7 train down to The Morgan Library & Museum to witness the work of the woman who bent light, faith, and convention into photographs that achieved the seemingly impossible feat of “arresting beauty.”
Julia Margaret Cameron yearned to capture the fleeting visions of the imagination, the dreamlike imagery that dances across our minds as we read, speak, and listen, but can never quite define.