Final Analysis
Roger Hicks considers… ‘Self-Portrait (as “New Woman”)’, 1896, by Frances Benjamin Johnston
Frances ‘Fannie’ Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) opened a studio in New York City in 1890 (some sources say 1894) and took this picture in 1896 in her early thirties. Google her for an account of an interesting life. Then go to the Library of Congress to see a collection of her pictures.
This is the 1890s equivalent of punk: the crossed legs on display; the petticoat; the cigarette; the beer stein. The phrase ‘New Woman’ was used to indicate either approval or disapproval, usually extreme in both cases.
What fascinates me, apart from the overt and probably covert symbolism, is how very well it is done. Self-portraits are extremely hard to light (look at the shadows and highlights here), frame, compose and pose for. At the fastest, she might have seen a still-wet glass plate maybe half an hour after the exposure, and an as-ye tunfixed contact print an hour or two after that. The odd lightening of the print, left and bottom, could be reflections from the edges of the plate-holder, or it might be fading. Blow it up (it wouldn’t show in a contact print) and you can see that either the focus is a little rocky or her head moved slightly during the exposure.
We can see what Fannie did, even if at 122 years’ remove we may miss some of the symbolism. What’s intriguing is to ask ourselves how we might approach a self-portrait to show off our personality, our beliefs and either our ambitions or our history, or conceivably both. Do we show ourselves as we are; or as we would like to be; or as we might imagine ourselves in another life? Well-to-do Victorians (and those who could afford such indulgences were normally well-to-do) were often adventurous. You might get the ‘proto punk’ look, like Fannie; or a nude (George Bernard Shaw); or dress as a tramp…
The props are ‘Bohemian’, to be sure: look at the rugs, the ‘primitive’ art, the huge ewer, the modern and oriental pots, the portraits on the mantel-shelf (five male, one indeterminate though not her partner Mattie Edwards Hewitt, whom she would not meet until 1901). And yet, there is a good deal of solid bourgeois there, too: the big fireplace with its firedogs, the chenille drape on the table. What props would you choose? How would you dress and pose? Who are you?