Not quite like this. Bur amateur dramatics and little plays were a Big thing for the Victorians and earlier. Its central to the plot of Mansfield Park for instance.
It's a long time since I read Cranford by Mrs Gaskell but I think I remember that one of the sorrows of the women in the story was that the brother of one of them was banished abroad for dressing up as a woman for a joke.
I'm wondering whether this is why the boy in this painting is given a moustache as well as feminine clothing . . . to show he isn't really effeminate - or whether the opposite is true, that the mix of masculine and feminine was a daring choice of subject for a Victorian painting.
Hi Lucy, not sure I can answer your very good points but by coincidence I am quite interested in Steampunk fiction and just to show it still goes on (though not by me):
Complete with moustache!
ReplyDeleteWhat fun!
Could have been surreal but isn't.
Haven't seen a painting like it.
Lucy
Not quite like this. Bur amateur dramatics and little plays were a Big thing for the Victorians and earlier. Its central to the plot of Mansfield Park for instance.
ReplyDeleteIt was complicated though.
ReplyDeleteIt's a long time since I read Cranford by Mrs Gaskell but I think I remember that one of the sorrows of the women in the story was that the brother of one of them was banished abroad for dressing up as a woman for a joke.
I'm wondering whether this is why the boy in this painting is given a moustache as well as feminine clothing . . . to show he isn't really effeminate - or whether the opposite is true, that the mix of masculine and feminine was a daring choice of subject for a Victorian painting.
Lucy
Hi Lucy,
ReplyDeletenot sure I can answer your very good points but by coincidence I am quite interested in Steampunk fiction and just to show it still goes on (though not by me):
http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=15347.0