Papers by Charlotte Carter
In this article, I shall introduce some core ideas from my research on the character of photograp... more In this article, I shall introduce some core ideas from my research on the character of photographic representations published in archaeological journals during the mid-twentieth century. The aim of this study is to show the connection between the employment of certain scientific visual aesthetics in site photography at a time when the discipline of archaeology wanted to be seen as more scientific. Using the rod scale as a key visual metaphor for the identity of the discipline, I will argue that the increasing presence of the rod scale in published site photographs played a key part in the development of a specific scientific visual vocabulary which was driven by the contemporary culture-historical context.
This paper considers how photographic discourse in archaeology affects our perception of the disc... more This paper considers how photographic discourse in archaeology affects our perception of the discipline. Today, there is no specific study on how Processual and Postprocessual archaeology affected the visual representation of archaeology in photography published in academic and non-academic works.
Pegasus Issue 56 (2013) pp. 31-38
To what extent do we know the past? How do archaeological photographs shape our knowledge of the ... more To what extent do we know the past? How do archaeological photographs shape our knowledge of the past? Does the form of an archaeological photograph influence our preconceptions of archaeology as a discipline? What makes a photograph archaeological? To what extent is an archaeological photograph a “truthful” and “factual” document? The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which archaeological photographs provided an accurate, truthful and factual historical record during the 1950s, at a time when the discipline of archaeology was experiencing major changes in its theories, methods and approaches. I will argue how the photographic discourse in archaeology presents a complicated and subjective process for the visual record of archaeological materials. The major themes which dominate this discourse are myth versus reality, tradition versus modernity and truth versus illusion. After outlining the culture-historical context for the 1950s, I will use a case study, the academic journal American Journal of Archaeology (AJA), to reveal the conflicting visual ideologies and inconsistencies surrounding the “truthful” and “factual” representation of archaeological material during the 1950s.
My PhD project investigates the relationship between visual literacy and photographing the ancien... more My PhD project investigates the relationship between visual literacy and photographing the ancient world in the mid-twentieth century. Visual literacy is a term coined in 1971 to describe the ability to recognize, interpret and understand information created in the form of a visual image or action. Modern scholars, (Gamble 1992), have observed that there is a tendency in the theoretical literature in archaeology to include very few illustrations. Furthermore, explicit studies on the visual in archaeology have still very much taken for granted the selection and process of illustrations. I have conducted several surveys of the publication of archaeological site photographs in archaeological literature during the period 1950 to 1980. The purpose of this exercise was to create a database in which I could extrapolate statistics, patterns and trends for the nature of visual literacy in academic and popular articles. This period was an important time for the discipline of archaeology as it experienced many theoretical debates concerning the study and method of archaeology. In this paper, using my primary data from my surveys, I will show how these debates affected a) the style of archaeological site photographs, and b) the visual perception of archaeology in the mid-twentieth century.
Archaeological landscapes captured by the camera is a significant area of research, as it is thes... more Archaeological landscapes captured by the camera is a significant area of research, as it is these images which have had a great impact for the visualization of archaeology, its methods and practices, according to the historical context in which the images were created and published. My PhD project questions how archaeological photographs shape our knowledge of the past, and influence our visual perceptions of archaeology as a discipline during the mid-twentieth century. Using agency theory, art theories, theories of viewing and contextual hermeneutics, my aim is to gain a greater understanding in the thought processes and scientific and artistic influences which shaped archaeological site photographs from the 1950s to 1970s, in relation to the great changes occurring in the study of New Archaeology in Britain and America. In this paper, I will discuss data gathered from several surveys on archaeological site photographs I have conducted in British and American, Classical and Prehistoric, archaeological journals during this period. The results from these surveys highlight the extent to which archaeological photographs mirror the developments and debates in New Archaeology in the 1960s, including spatial and temporal differences in the visual representation of gender, racial, colonial, artistic and scientific aspects.
I entered the world of classics from a very young age. I can recall sitting on my grandfather’s l... more I entered the world of classics from a very young age. I can recall sitting on my grandfather’s lap listening intently to the stories of the great gods of ancient Greece and Rome, and the engineering marvels of the ancient Egyptians with the pyramids and Romans with the Colosseum and aqueducts. Pictures in storybooks inspired my inquisitiveness and need for understanding what it was like to have lived in this world which seemed so foreign to me. Little did I know that this was to have a profound impact on my future education up to the present day. My PhD project focuses on the use of photography as a scientific tool for recording the reception of the classical world by academics and the public in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries....
How do you define the scientific and aesthetic nature of a photograph? How does this affect the r... more How do you define the scientific and aesthetic nature of a photograph? How does this affect the reception of the image in terms of its content and as a medium? Is the scientific nature of photography affected by an artistic perspective? Is photography first a science and then an art? What effect does nineteenth-century culture have on the use of photography in the twentieth century in archaeology?
Victorian vision of ancient Rome was complex, and the artistic responses to Rome during the ninet... more Victorian vision of ancient Rome was complex, and the artistic responses to Rome during the nineteenth-century were powerful and varied. The artists explored many different themes, such as permanence and impermanence, republican virtue and imperial decadence, morality and depravity, and romanticism and realism, in order to educate the Victorian public of a magnificent empire, whose history could be brought back to life. Within these artworks, the Roman Empire provides the building blocks for the British Empire yet at the same time, the artists juxtapose the idea of the permanence of the British Empire illustrated by the fabric of its ancient content. The ruins of Rome show that no empire can escape the wrath of time and neglect, however, Alma-Tadema believed that although periods of history change greatly in appearance, people throughout time actually change very little. By imagining Rome through the eyes of nineteenth-century British artists, we are invited into a world of luxury, decadence, beauty, and power; and most importantly, we meet the ancestor of the British Empire.
The purpose of this study is to identify the Victorian reception of the world of antiquity by ana... more The purpose of this study is to identify the Victorian reception of the world of antiquity by analysing the selected artworks by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Edward John Poynter and Edward Matthew Hale: The Coliseum (1896), Preparation at the Coliseum (1912), Attendants at the Coliseum (date unknown), A Roman Boat Race (1889), The Baths of Caracalla (1899) and The Parting Kiss (1882). The artist’s use of a Roman classical setting, and accurate rendering of scenes from the past using archaeological sources, shows an explicit anthropological study of the Greek and Roman Empires using the medium of art in the nineteenth-century. The artistic impressions of Roman domesticity and femininity reflect Victorian fascination with new discoveries in archaeology, and the establishment of a commodity culture in England embraced shortly after the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1852.
Portrayals of the daily lives of the Romans minimized the distance between the British and Roman Empires and permitted a closer accessibility and connectivity between the Victorian viewer and the Roman presence. It is clear that this was the aim of Alma-Tadema who claimed that, “the old Romans were human flesh and blood like ourselves.” The reunification of Italy in the 1870s and re-establishment of Rome as the new capital illustrated that Rome was still the centre of attention after the Renaissance, both for its ancient past and new political status. The volume of Roman-subject genre paintings between 1860 and 1912 infers that this was a specific period of Victorian interest in Rome. During this time, there were numerous Late Victorian paintings, which concentrated also on ancient Greece and Egypt, which implies that there was a revival of interest in ancient Mediterranean civilizations in the nineteenth-century.
The purpose of this paper is to recognise the extent to which an archaeological perspective was e... more The purpose of this paper is to recognise the extent to which an archaeological perspective was embarked upon by Victorian artists in their representations of ancient Egypt. The expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt 1798 was a major contributor of the “Egyptomania” established in the nineteenth century. The accomplishment of the Description de l’Egypte provided an access route to numerous ruins and monuments of ancient Egypt. It was the first of many publications that soon began to circulate among scholars, upper classes and most importantly artists during the beginning of the nineteenth century. The vast collections of the British Consul in Egypt, Henry Salt, with the aid of Giovanni Belzoni, took dominance within the British Museum in London. It is the discovery, acquisition and publication of the antiquities of ancient Egypt that are most influential upon Royal Academicians in their artworks of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Ancient Egypt became one of the main constituents of popular culture, and with the media of art, I shall explore how the study of Egyptian archaeology compelled artists to accurately depict artefacts within their great artworks. One should recognise the importance of this particular study as there appears to be neither a specific paper which identifies and contrasts Egyptian artefacts within Victorian paintings, nor one which accounts for how Victorian artists may have viewed or acquired the archaeological knowledge necessary for their reconstruction of ancient Egypt.
Teaching Documents by Charlotte Carter
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Papers by Charlotte Carter
Portrayals of the daily lives of the Romans minimized the distance between the British and Roman Empires and permitted a closer accessibility and connectivity between the Victorian viewer and the Roman presence. It is clear that this was the aim of Alma-Tadema who claimed that, “the old Romans were human flesh and blood like ourselves.” The reunification of Italy in the 1870s and re-establishment of Rome as the new capital illustrated that Rome was still the centre of attention after the Renaissance, both for its ancient past and new political status. The volume of Roman-subject genre paintings between 1860 and 1912 infers that this was a specific period of Victorian interest in Rome. During this time, there were numerous Late Victorian paintings, which concentrated also on ancient Greece and Egypt, which implies that there was a revival of interest in ancient Mediterranean civilizations in the nineteenth-century.
Teaching Documents by Charlotte Carter
Portrayals of the daily lives of the Romans minimized the distance between the British and Roman Empires and permitted a closer accessibility and connectivity between the Victorian viewer and the Roman presence. It is clear that this was the aim of Alma-Tadema who claimed that, “the old Romans were human flesh and blood like ourselves.” The reunification of Italy in the 1870s and re-establishment of Rome as the new capital illustrated that Rome was still the centre of attention after the Renaissance, both for its ancient past and new political status. The volume of Roman-subject genre paintings between 1860 and 1912 infers that this was a specific period of Victorian interest in Rome. During this time, there were numerous Late Victorian paintings, which concentrated also on ancient Greece and Egypt, which implies that there was a revival of interest in ancient Mediterranean civilizations in the nineteenth-century.