BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???

Subject: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 06:29 AM

Pretty sure it was 2016, probably BBC.

Anyone remember anything about it? Title, Channel, date etc.

The premise was that a photograph that had emerged in France was of a full frontal nude Alice Liddell. The photo was genuinely of an age consistent with Charles Dodgeson's interest in photography. The face hinted at an older girl.

The discussion pointed to the possibility it was of Ina, the older sister and that Dodgeson was paying court to Ina. The interest in Alice was as a means to this. Dodgeson's social status was too lowly for their Victorian parent's to consider and contact with the family ceased abruptly.

Anyone see this? Maybe on PBS in the US. . . TIA

PS Smithsonian mag webpage near the bottom discusses the situation with Alice & Ina. Convincingly IMNSHO.

Feel free to impune Dodgeson's reputation (and I may disagree) but I am looking for the TV Documentary. It was one of an irregular series trying to attribute picture/photos. Bit like the History Detectives on PBS/YouTube.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 06:42 AM

I don't know about the programme but i remember reading that Charles Dodgeson did take such photos but regarded them as innocent art. When someone pointed out it could be interpreted othwrwise he was horrified and gave up photography entirely.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 08:03 AM

I doubt very much that Dodgson was paying court to Ina. Having read quite a lot about him, my guess (and it's only a personal guess, of course) is that he was probably asexual. The Liddell's were more wordly wise than he was about the photographing of children - though it was certainly more accepted as an art form in those days - and perhaps disquieted by his companionship with the children. I don't believe contact with the family ceased entirely - Dodgson was, after all, an Anglican deacon and the holder of the Mathematical Lectureship, staying at Christ Church until his death. He would inevitably have had some formal and informal interaction with the Dean's family through those years.

As for his social standing, Dodgson came from a family of High Church Anglicans and was certainly a respected member of the Oxford society. He was described by Tuckwell as "austere, shy, precise, absorbed in mathematical reverie, watchfully tenacious of his dignity, stiffly conservative in political, theological, social theory, his life mapped out in squares like Alice's landscape." I doubt that we'll ever really know the real man - but we can still speculate.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 08:21 AM

I've always put Charles Dodgson in the same category as Robert Baden-Powell and James Barrie. To me (although as you say, Will, we can't ever know for sure) they were men who had very weak sexual orientation of any sort, and were consumed instead by other strong interests and passions. They found young people and children particularly appealing for their fresh minds and innocence, and had the gift of being able to see the world from a child's point of view. This doesn't necessarily make them paedophiles, but nowadays we are (quite rightly) very vigilant about this sort of thing.
They may of course have subconsciously been suppressing perverted tastes, but I personally don't think so. Children in the nude in paintings or photographs were regarded in those days as rather charming and even artistic.
It seems a shame that a woman who is very interested in children and their minds is normally viewed as perfectly innocent, but a man with the same gifts is nowadays pounced on as a pervert. But knowing what we know about various men in more recent times, I suppose it's inevitable.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 08:36 AM

a bit like the diplodocus - you can take the bones apart - but was it a man or a woman diplodocus.....?

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Jeri
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 09:11 AM

It's not this, is it? The Secret World of Lewis Carroll" (YouTube)

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 10:32 AM

These photos were generally considered sort of healthful, unless they were of women, as I understand it ;)
Somerville & Ross took some lovely photos of each other bathing in lonely sea pools, photos that are all the more interesting for showing the exaggerated Victorian body, resulting from corseting from an early age.
And pictures of naked boys from military school running into the sea to bathe were a usual thing (I nearly wrote a normal thing) at the time.
But Lewis Carroll's pictures of Alice were… well… sultry. You'd have to wonder. And Barrie with the little lad who was the model for Peter Pan.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 01:14 PM

I've just watched Jeri's link on Youtube, and it seems the photo in question was of Lorina, not Alice. According to the very convincing experts on the documentary, the facial features (examined by a man who works with criminal cases involving photos) tally exactly with those of Lorina, (as compared with known photos of her). The photo was not shown in its entirety as it was a full-frontal nude of a teenage girl. The age of the picture was verified as from the same period as Dodgson's other photographic work.
I found this documentary extremely fascinating, so thank you Jeri.
I can't now see this latest development (the film was made in 2015) as confirming my original opinion of the man as an innocent childlike person. This picture could not be seen as innocent at all. Dodgson was apparently banned from the Liddell's house for mysterious reasons involving perhaps the governess or Lorina. One is left trying to imagine the feelings going through the mind of the poor teenage lassie as Dodgson took the full-frontal nude photo. Was she co-erced, groomed or romantically involved with him?
Will Self gave his opinion that Dodgson was a repressed paedophile,and I'm afraid I'm tending to that opinion myself now.
I suppose a more cynical and less naive person than myself would say to me, "If it quacks like a duck..."

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 01:32 PM

It's been reasonably well documented that Dodgson always had an adult present when he took his photographs of children. I haven't seen the documentary so can't comment here, but it may well have been that the photo in question was taken with no adult present. Which would certainly help to explain the reasons for the Liddell's displeasure.

The relevant pages from his diary - around 4 volumes and some pages - which cover that period in his life, are missing. Perhaps filleted by the family. It's also documented that Dodgson suffered severe depressions and was tormented by his own view of himself as a sonful person - whatever that meant.

What's not generally recognised is that Liddell's friendships with women were not confined to pubescent or pre-pubescent girls. He had many close friendships with adult women, but some biographers have tended to suppress this facet of his character.

Now - must check out the documentary...

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 02:25 PM

Good points, Will Fly, and maybe a typo or two -- some confusing things.
By Liddell's friendships with women, did you intend Dodgson's friendships with women?
By sonful person, did you intend sinful person?

Anyway, those days are impossible for me to regard except from the perspective of somebody who lived through part of the revolutionary and even somewhat apocalyptic years of the 1900's. How can I see the 1800's except as a precursor, in which the tremendous, irreversible, sometimes traumatic changes of the 1900's have their foundations and their roots?

And so to the sexuality question. Sexuality in the 1900's, after Dodgson and Barrie, was an explosive thing as is well documented. So I look at the 1800's and I see, right or wrong, a sort of time bomb, ticking away. The man we know as Dodgson is a character whose formation and conduct hearken back to a much earlier era, and to mores very different than ours. Also in England of the 1800's we have men like John Ruskin and Charles Kingsley; these distinguished writers were men with nearly ungovernable passions, they had to almost literally wrestle with their sexual drives, and as we know, one of them was undone by them. Next to all these we have the Aberdeenshire native George MacDonald, father of eleven children and devoted to their mother all his life, who knew of these men, was very close to some of them, and observed them and their characters. MacDonald was on friendly terms with both Dodgson and Ruskin, and two more different men would be hard to imagine!

Photographs were part of the lives of all of these men, and their families. And the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words echoes far and deep in this context.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 02:36 PM

Sorry Keberoxu - "sonful" should indeed be "sinful" and I wrote Liddell's when I meant Dodgson's!

Typing in haste in between checking the cooking progress is always a silly thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 02:50 PM

The TV prog doesn't ring bells yet - the one I remember was centred on the provenance of the photo.
As has been said here and in the link in the OP, sections of his diaries were excised by his relatives. It is also said he had adult affairs which would also explain the missing pages, he was a minister after all.
We will never fully know, but he did continue his photography even had his own lab at the college. For at least 20 years, only stopped when they had a faster process which didn't use. Only 1000 of the 3000 he is known to have taken, survive. I will continue with the YouTube video to see if it is the one, but the blurb is not encouraging and I was sure it was 2016. My not have been the BBC.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Gurney
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 03:22 PM

I've seen that photo. A girl of about seven with her arms over her head. It would be called child porn today. But it wasn't taken today.

The programme wasn't shown here.

I should add that the photo is in a book of Victorian photos, mostly of situations and personalities and workingmen but with a short 'art' section.
There was one shot of a pretty young lady playing tennis wearing a
heavy ankle-length skirt. You could see a vague shape of one of her calves. This aroused some controversy at the time, the caption said.

Times change.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Gurney
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 03:59 PM

Bringing the photo into the mind's eye: The child is standing, facing the camera, in front of her seated and fully clothed mother. The mother is one of Carroll's servants, which makes me wonder if 'class' didn't play a part.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 05:13 PM

No this photo was found in a collection in Paris and still owned by a museum in France. The YouTube Video does not show the entire photo that I remember it from, but it is the photo I referred to.

And notably one guy on that video says he has studied Carroll/Dodgson for 40 years and reckons if there was any hint of impropriety with children he would have expected to have dug it up. Notwithstanding that photo which was of a girl of marriageable age in Victorian times.

Curiously, the Wiki page on Lewis Carroll did not discuss this, so I tried adding a section in the appropriate place with references to a Smithsonian website and it was removed. I now redone with added that YouTube video reference, but fully expect it to be removed.

Anyone - can you explain what "editorialising" means? Given that I tried to follow the tenor of the article. The reviewer doesn't say anything else and doesn't invite discussion on his page.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Gurney
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 05:48 PM

I just found another study of a child by Carroll in my very small collection of Victorian photos, a named small girl in a voluminous nightshirt(?) scowling at the camera because she can't brush the waves out of her hair.
Looking through the photos, you'd think there wasn't much fun in the Victorian era. Not a smile among the lot of them.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 06:43 PM

Well I've looked at some of the collections of his pics that are easy enough to find on the web, and I've read his potted biography on wiki. Hardly scholarly, but a starting point.

There is a context here. There was a fad for photographing small children in Victorian times that didn't have attached to it the sensibilities we've developed today. The children were frequently photographed naked. It's way too simplistic to say that he was simply "of his time" because we have to accept that, just like today, his exploitation of children had the potential to be damaging to those children.

Incidentally, in those days children often died young, as we know. There was a fashion, if your child died, to prop up the dead body, made up and dressed up, eyes jammed open, and have a family group photo taken with the dead child there as part of the family.

Yer man certainly had relationships with adult women, some a fair bit younger than him. but still grown-ups. Information about these was suppressed because it was held to be scandalous that a man of the cloth should have indulged himself in that way. The unfortunate upshot of that suppression was that only his relationships with girl-children were left for us to contemplate.

At least half of his photographs were destroyed. It would be easy to conclude that he might have been ashamed of them, but it's just as likely, as I see it, that he just ditched his second-rate efforts, just as we delete our blurry pics today.

The vast majority of the photos I've seen today were of fully-clothed girls with no particular hint of salacious intent in the "arty" poses. A few show a pre-pubescent girl in what we might describe today as a provocative pose. I do find that disturbing personally. I have my doubts as to whether the little girl had much of a clue as to what the photographer was up to, but it still looks exploitative.

One or two photos and a couple of drawings are of naked children. The photos, though not the drawings I've seen, reveal breasts and genitals uncovered. They are incredibly unsexy, as the girl looks utterly uncomfortable, and I find that kind of imagery to be completely unpalatable. I wondered when I saw them why he didn't delete them as well.

I don't think it matters, in terms of the exploitation of the girls that was going on, whether their parents were complicit or even present. The naked photos overstep the mark by any measure. He may have had " permission". But the girls themselves were not of an age to give their informed consent. By saying that I don't think I'm seeing things merely from a 21st century viewpoint.

I don't know for sure, obviously, but I doubt that he actually laid hands on the girls. He was living a fantasy and it probably wouldn't be unkind to suggest that he was providing himself with masturbatory material. Who knows. He wouldn't have felt the need to destroy it had he thought that the parental connivance had accorded his photos some legitimacy.

I don't think we should ditch Alice In Wonderland. I wouldn't want to watch repeats of Jim'll Fix It though. That's the difference!

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: meself
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 07:52 PM

Decades ago, I read an article on this subject in The Atlantic, I believe it was. It didn't reach any firm conclusions - but it had a few pretty creepy quotations from letters from Dodgson to Mrs Liddell. On the topic of his photography, he seemed to find an inordinate number of occasions to mention, if not elaborate on, Alice's "knickers".

It may be that the man was "in denial" concerning his (possible) predilections, at a time when it was probably a little easier to be in such denial than it would be today.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jan 17 - 08:16 PM

Gurney - photos in the nineteenth century took a long time (up to 7 minutes) so necks & bodies were supported. People rest their arms on tables & chair arms, & lean on walls etc. Mothers squatted behind the chair baby was sitting in, while the photographer waved a toy.

Pinterest even has category for 'The Posing Stand - For helping LIVE people hold still! And another for Post Mortem photography!

google search 19th century photography long exposures neck supports check out the Images, also the related searches like Victorian post mortem photography!

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 04:16 AM

Dodgson's diaries are interesting reading, in spite of the filleting by the family. What comes across in them (to me) is a picture of Dodgson as a highly moral but self-critical man. One of the conditions for holding his academic post at Christ Church was that he be ordained - which meant that he also had to be celibate. The diaries reveal a man who, in the wakeful hours of the night, would devise tough mathematical problems to work on in order to keep other thoughts at bay. There was a period of despair in his life when he thought of himself as worthless, a sinner, and he wrestled with those fears and that guilt.

One can guess - and only guess - that Dodgson was troubled by sexual temptation and feelings which he felt he ought to resist. Long-term celibacy in a young-ish and reasonably man can obviously cause stress. I think a lesser man would, at night, have given in to the temptation to get sexual relief by masturbation - who would know, after all, if he did? But my guess is that Dodgson did not give in to that temptation - witness the mental exercises to occupy his mind and drive away wicked thoughts - particularly given the Victorians' obsession with masturbation causing idiocy, physical decay and moral ruin.

Dodgson wrote to a number of mature, young women, inviting them to tea or to stay with humorous phrases such as "let us defy Mrs. Grundy and meet for tea", i.e. defying convention and meeting unchaperoned, but no doubt with no impropriety. It's ironic that the Victorian convention of photographing naked children was accepted then and, rightly, frowned on today - while "Mrs. Grundy" would be laughed out of court these days. In an earlier post here I considered Dodgson to be probably asexual, but perhaps he had normal sexual feelings which he consciously repressed as sinful, given his position in Christ Church.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 06:08 AM

When you refer to "lesser men" succumbing to the temptation of masturbating, I'm assuming that you are seeing that through Victorian eyes and are not suggesting that that exceptionally healthy pastime is in any way diminishing!

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 06:31 AM

Not at all, Steve - nothing wrong with beating the bishop, in my view! By "lesser" I meant a man with less high principles/moral standards - whatever you want to call it - than I think Dodgson had.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 10:18 AM

its all a bit precious examining the stains on this daft old buggers pyjamas, when you consider the Jack the Ripper/Mrs Dyer babyfarming scenario that was being ennacted just outside the groves of acadame during this period.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 10:46 AM

Well, the Ripper was going about Whitechapel in the 1880s - about the same time as Mrs. Dyer was going about her nefarious activities - and Dodgson's "Alice in Wonderland" was published in the 1860s. Twenty years difference and another world away.

What's wrong with discussing Charles Dodgson's life and character, and why should the Ripper (whose life and times have been equally done to death - pun intended) be more important?

All that the Ripper has left us with is a flourishing and rather sick industry centered around his identity and a prurient fascination with murder and prostitution. Dodgson, whatever his psyche might have been, at least gave us interesting and complex works of fantasy which have delighted generations of children and adults the world over. Not at all precious in my view.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 11:04 AM

Might be interesting to read the scholarly conjecture on Gary Glitter in 150 years time...???🙄

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 11:25 AM

Waitaminutewaitaminutethough… he was ordained, presumably as an Anglican minister? That didn't mean celibacy! (And incidentally, whatever nuttiness the Victorians indulged in, 'celibacy' literally means remaining unmarried, rather than becoming unsexed.)

I'd assume that Dodgson/Carroll simply wasn't (un/)lucky enough to find a willing mate. Vaguely remember that live-in dons couldn't be married, but I don't know if that meant you couldn't be a married don at all. If it did, and they were all as weird, well, it's no wonder the British upper classes turned a bit odd if that was who was educating them!

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: meself
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 11:26 AM

I somehow doubt there will be a great deal of scholarly conjecture on Gary Glitter in 150 years' time. But what do I know ... ?

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 11:48 AM

By the rules of Christ Church at that time, being a don meant ordination - and ordination there meant celibacy, as far as I'm aware.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 12:32 PM

Ah, thanks, Will Fly. Madness is more universal than I'd realised.

Carroll/Dodgson reminds one of the words of his countryman Thomas Hardy:

And there you'll see me, if a jot
    You still should care
For me and for my creepy air:
If otherwise, then I shall not,
    For you, be there.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 12:48 PM

Humphrey Carpenter has an interesting take on Carroll/Dodgson in his book "Secret Gardens" - he doesn't find anything particularly odd about his sexuality or his attitude to young girls, but he does find some deep weirdness in his attitudes to religion - which he seems to have detested despite having it as his day job. Everything in his published books (including the most famous ones) which seems to allude to God mixes up atheism and gnosticism to depict the Deity as a combination of stupid, evil and non-existent. He had much more cause to worry about what his contemporaries would have made of that.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 01:22 PM

.. so did he experiment with hallucinogenic substances like our legendary Scrumpyshire poetic role model Coleridge..???

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Gurney
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 02:00 PM

The ideas of what is salacious seemingly has changed remarkably since those days.
A depiction of a prepubertal girl with genitalia on display apparently isn't, but in a similar collection, a dancer in a costume that is skintight and flesh-coloured but actually displays nothing IS, to the extent that she got three months in the slammer for wearing it.

That costume was comical rather than sexy to (my) modern eyes. Fishnet tights too big to catch a mackerel, metal disks in the groin and waist area.....
The poses were quite similar. The child was standing, the woman leaning back, both with their arms above their heads. The child looked bemused, but the woman looked smugly challenging.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Jan 17 - 04:03 PM

did he experiment with hallucinogenic substances like our legendary Scrumpyshire poetic role model Coleridge

Opium for his migraines, it seems.

Opium usually makes migraines worse by making the brain swell. But whatever worked for him.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 06:08 AM

Vaguely remember that live-in dons couldn't be married

Deans were exempt, clearly. Or we would not have the subject to discuss.

On the subject of nakedness and genitalia, what about all those cherubims carved around monuments, in churches. Male I grant you, but naked and revealing. And for adults, fig leafs (often). What does that tell us about the Victorian moral divide?

And photography was new then, expensive and a hobbyist, arty thing. But cherubs could be depicted more simply than hammer & chisel, or paint that had to be manufactured by the artist from oxides and gums.

Gary Glitter? He will be judged as a rather evil Gaddfly (sic).
Analogous to Actor Managers who toured with their 12 year old "neices" of Victorian times. How those times have changed!

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 09:58 AM

the point I was trying to make was that Victorian England and London in particular was a moral cesspit.

Lewis Carrol, though probably a bit of a mucky sod on the quiet - in the great game of Sexual Opportunity Knocks is pretty much nought on the clapometer.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 01:35 PM

Being a mucky sod on the quiet is fine as long as it doesn't lead to abuse. Just remember the old saying: 98% of blokes wank and the other 2% are liars!

I saw a huge number of putti/cherubs in southern Italy and Sicily last summer. They certainly weren't all males, though males seem to predominate. Many of the sculptures are so exquisitely done with such close detail that it would be false to say that the child images are stylised, but they do have a lot in common with each other - skinny kids are not usually depicted shall we say, well-rounded body contours and serene, angelic, knowing faces predominate and there's no holding back on the depiction of genitals, though poses are never provocative. There must have been some child models, though it's possible that existing cherub sculptures were also used as models. The faces are often more mature than the bodies. Some toddlers must have had their kit removed for modelling. Different times, eh?

Are photos different? Does it matter that the cherubs we see adorning churches are done with such finesse whereas Dodgson's naked photos are such clumsy artistic failures?

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: meself
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 01:49 PM

Maybe they used cherubs as models - ever think of that??

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 02:20 PM

Care to run that one by me again? 🤔

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: meself
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 02:44 PM

Maybe they used cherubs as models - ever think of that??

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 03:22 PM

😂😂😂 Very witty. Now tell me what you mean!

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: meself
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 04:57 PM

Well, you speculated that they used children or sculpted cherubs as models for their paintings of cherubs - why would they not have just used actual cherubs?

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 05:02 PM

I wasn't talking about paintings as it happens but I get it now. Cheers!

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: meself
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 05:38 PM

It really was worth all the trouble, wasn't it! Wasn't it? Okay, well, maybe not .... Remember, I didn't grow up on Peter Cook ....

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 06:20 PM

We all love you anyway! 😂😂😂

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 06:39 PM

yes - perhaps he was granted by Our Lord a heavenly vision of little fat babies flashing their bumper size willies.
operation yewtree wasn't there to check on you storing suggestive images on the ceiling of the sistine chapel......and thus the renaissance was soon in every land, bit like the internet really.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 17 - 07:04 PM

I was trying to say that much of the sculpturing of those putti was fabulously well done and I for one don't mind seeing it as art. I spent hours in June inside (and outside - my hotel was 50 metres away -) the Basilica di Santa Croce in Lecce, Puglia. The amazing, detailed stonework was designed and overseen by the baroque architect and sculptor Giuseppe Zimbalo. There are lots of putti but also lots of strange beasts and bearded types along with some pretty frank fertility symbols. I found it utterly overwhelming and it became my favourite ancient church. Was any loin inappropriately stirred by its sculptures down the centuries? I very much doubt it.

But why did Dodgson feel the need to get his girlies to get their kit off for his photos...

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jan 17 - 10:31 AM

well i think there was a large element of self deception. i seem to remember Matthew Arnold had this thing about watching young ladies do PE - for the purest of motives naturally.

i think all that lot - the Christian 19th century English poets were uptight and suppressed natural drives within us to a quite uncontrollable extent.

when i was young i loved and responded to the deep passion inherent in the Arnold poem, Dover Beach. i could never accept the prosaic explanations of the critics that it was about his spiritual woes and waverings.

similarly with Manley Hopkins - i always felt there was more going on under the surface possibly that he was unaware of himself.

What a relief in tone - Whitman seems - its like the Americans took the lid off the pressure cooker.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jan 17 - 06:12 PM

I think there's a lot in that, Al. He was no Jimmy Savile - but did he do harm...

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jan 17 - 04:51 AM

Steve wrote above, in a post that is worth re-reading in full:


... It's way too simplistic to say that he was simply "of his time" because we have to accept that, just like today, his exploitation of children had the potential to be damaging to those children.

...

I don't think it matters, in terms of the exploitation of the girls that was going on, whether their parents were complicit or even present. The naked photos overstep the mark by any measure. He may have had " permission". But the girls themselves were not of an age to give their informed consent. By saying that I don't think I'm seeing things merely from a 21st century viewpoint.


We've been around this before, so I don't intend to dwell on it. But while I agree it is too simplistic to say he was "of his time", I think you are still giving too much weight to a 21st century viewpoint. There is am immense difference between a Saville knowingly exploiting great numbers of under age children for his own purposes, and the fact that all of us - with almost no exceptions if you are over 60 and of sound mind - knew that such things went on in the Rock'n'Roll world, even if we so distant from the people involved we could not name names. But to that limited extent, we were all complicit in permitting paedophilia to continue, and our only excuse is that is we were "of the time". There is a pretty poor series running on of the channels called "It was all right in the 70s" which makes plain the sexism, racism and other isms that were rife in mainstream entertainment at the time. And that was the entertainment provided because that what we, generally, liked it, being "of the time". Obviously there were groups and individuals who didn't, but in the main, society was at least comfortable with it.
"COnfessions of a Window Cleaner was the top grossing British film of 1974, for example, but even at the time many people thought it incredibly sleazy, Equally I have not the slightest doubt this continues: in fifty or a hundred years there will be things we do today that people look back on and say 'how could they have allowed that? Didn't they see the harm that was done to children/society/whatever?" Some we can see now and will be able to say we protested against it in various ways, but there will be others we simply are not aware of, or just accept, because we are "of the time".

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jan 17 - 05:03 AM

All I've done is asked the question, did he do harm? I haven't answered it from a 21st century viewpoint, though I have said that getting little girls to drop their bras and knickers for a full-frontal photo is overstepping the mark by a long chalk by any measure. Also, I think I actually contrasted rather than compared him with Jimmy Savile.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jan 17 - 05:23 AM

Agreed, you contrasted Carroll with Saville. That is why I also contrasted Saville with the general public of the 70s who were content to have low level porn in the mainstream entertainment. They did not see any relationship between the two. I do not know the depths of Carroll's mind any more than anyone else (and less than those who have studied his diaries) but without evidence to the contrary it seems perfectly possible that he did not percieve the children as being harmed in the slightest by the experience. Seeing that harm is a 20/21st century perception.

The music industry was famously "Sex'n'drugs'n'Rock'n'Roll". It seems a 21st century quirk of history that we have focused on sex. With a different turn of events we could have focused on the "drugs" part. Many of the villians would be the same, but we could have a significantly different set. And in some cases i have no doubt the harm to children could have been as great.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jan 17 - 11:01 AM

i suppose all of us do harm...its why the Catholic Church are onto such a winner with 'original sin'

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jan 17 - 08:37 PM

Dunno, Al. I think that a few blokes fail to draw that line that says she's someone's little daughter, she's not worldly-wise like me, I'm in a position of power over her, she just might not enjoy what I'm going to do to her as much as I will, she can't react to me appropriately as she's not the sexual being that I am, what I do to her might radicalise her sexually, she might grow up to be long-term mortally ashamed and damaged in other ways because of what I've done....

I hear that casual sexual abuse of girls is frighteningly common. Could be that the vast majority of girls can shrug it off. But is that really any justification for it?

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jan 17 - 06:05 AM

Does it matter that the cherubs we see adorning churches are done with such finesse whereas Dodgson's naked photos are such clumsy artistic failures?

I haven't seen any of his nude ones, but his pictures of girls with clothes on are superb - they come across as real individuals whatever the stereotyped costumes also communicate.

Putti are just creepy and I'd be quite happy to see every one ever painted or sculpted replaced by blank painted wall or a kitten. (There is a particularly weird set of naked little boys propping up the memorial to Gladstone in Shandwick Place, Edinburgh - for crissake, why?)

About 20 years ago I went to an exhibition of photos by Graham Ovenden, billed as saying something about 19th century childhood. It didn't - it was entirely about Ovenden's own sexual fantasies. It was quite obvious where Ovenden was coming from (and he is still in jail for it, I think). Ovenden was one of the people responsible for the image of Carroll as a paedophile - he wanted to have a respectable precedent he could cite. But it was bollocks; Carroll's stuff doesn't communicate anything like the same feeling.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 17 - 06:42 AM

Just looked at a photo of the Gladstone memorial. I agree about the naked boys. Totally gratuitous.

Paint over the putti? Think we'd better find an infinitely wise being who is capable of passing a final judgement on the motivations of the commissioners and sculptors and the reactions of the people who clapped eyes on them in those times. The very best of them are beautifully done whatever you may think of the subject matter. I do find it hard not to find them jarring, though I can't imagine what kind of mind would ever find them "sexy." Can't see kittens in their place somehow. Would you daub over Michelangelo's ignudi too? See you in jail!

Your Gladstone boys are that much older. They are well sculpted but they are just wrong.

I agree about many of Dodgson's fully-clothed photos. They stand up very well as works of art. The naked ones are just not right. In between, and probably his most famous image of Alice Liddell, there's the pre-pubescent girl in a provocative dress-off-one-shoulder pose. The fine line could be either side of that one.

Subject: RE: BS: TV prog- nude photo- by Lewis Carroll???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 17 - 06:45 AM

Older than the putti though not older than Michelangelo's gorgeous youths is what I meant.