Charles Hay Cameron

The aesthetics of the human figure, the interrelationship of sight and touch in the creation of works of art, and the metaphysical properties of language are some of the issues that are discussed. > > When he retired to the Isle of Wight in 1860, Charles Cameron led a sedentary existence, withdrawing from the customary throng of household visitors to the isolation of his bedchamber and the solace of Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, and Keats. He was photographed only on a few occasions by his wife, most notably when he performed the roles of King Lear and Merlin in her illustrations for Tennyson’s *Idylls of the King* (see [84.XO.732.1.1.5](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/58904/julia-margaret-cameron-vivien-and-merlin-british-1874/), [84.XO.732.6](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/59436/eadweard-j-muybridge-the-pacific-coast-of-central-america-and-mexico-the-isthmus-of-panama-guatemala-and-the-cultivationshipment-of-coffee-1876/)). > > In this early portrait Cameron chose to picture her husband in an engaging, frontal pose, seated in an armchair in his overcoat, bathed in dramatic side lighting. The grandiose and yet tender nature of the study recalls the sentiments expressed by Cameron toward him in a prayer she wrote in 1838, when quickened with her first child: “Most blessed Lord . . . Thou alone dost know how fondly dear This my husband is to me, how great is his tenderness, how true is his love.” > > Julian Cox. *Julia Margaret Cameron*, In Focus: From the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996), 14. ©1996 The J. Paul Getty Museum.