The ‘Spinster’ and her Jellyfish: Dorothy’s Cross Medusae (2003) and historiographical storytelling

Abstract

This essay analyses Dorothy Cross’s 2003 video work Medusae in relation to late-twentieth-century literary reworkings of the historical past A visual representation of the obscure woman naturalist Maude Delap, Medusae is argued here to function as historiographic montage, interrogating and celebrating the possibility of visualising an historical life through visual art. Using established literary models including intertextuality and dialogic structuring, the essay presents Medusae as an important example of visual art’s response to debates surrounding historiography and creative representations of the past through making a detail analysis of how its elements and forms mediate a specific historical life in ‘the present’.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

[1] Letter to Maude Delap dated 27 March 1905. My sincere thanks to Mick Delap for providing me with copies of this letter.

[2] In the Victorian language of flowers the violet signifies that its sender will ‘always be true’.

[3] Riders to the Sea, English National Opera, London, 2008; Tablerlane, Melbourne Festival, 1997; Design for Opera Theatre Company of Ireland production of Songs of Poems of Emily Dickenson (Coplans) and Diary Extracts of Virginia Wolfe (Argento), The John Field Room, National Concert Hall, Dublin, 1994.

[4] Hansson (1998), p.22.

[5] Invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761, the glass harmonica produces a sweet but disquieting sound.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Isobel Elstob

Isobel is an Assistant Professor in History of Art at the University of Nottingham, and has held roles at Birkbeck, University of London and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Her research focuses on contemporary visualizations of the historical past, using analytic models from historiography, narratology and literary theory. She has contributed to conferences and panels both national and internationally and directed engagement events in the UK and has published work on artists including Mark Dion, Carrie Mae Weems, and Mark Fairnington. Isobel is currently working on her forthcoming monograph Visualizing the Victorians: the nineteenth century in contemporary art.