Wuthering Heights is the only novel published by Emily Bronte.[1] Published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell (to hide Bronte’s gender), it is often considered to be a classic work of English literature in general, and Gothic literature in particular. A strange melodramatic story about love and betrayal in the cold, isolated Yorkshire moors, it has been analyzed, interpreted and reinterpreted countless times, especially by modern day feminists. It has also inspired many artists, including contemporary fine art photographer Samantha “Sam” Taylor-Wood. Taylor-Wood’s collection of surrealistically haunting photographs entitled “Ghosts”, which is currently being displayed at the Brooklyn Museum, was inspired both by the novel and her own experiences in the frigid Yorkshire moors.[2]
In some sense the “Ghosts” collection feels out of place in its current location in the museum, which in some ways feels almost like a house divided against itself. On one floor you may find a reconstruction of a Civil War era house; on another, the latest in modern photography. The juxtaposition of historical artifacts with modern art is a bit disorienting, but the museum is versatile and that disorientation quickly fades. A greater reason that Taylor-Wood’s photographs seem out of place is that they are right next to Judy Chicago’s famous installation, “The Dinner Party”, depicting a triangular dinner table with place settings and hand-crafted dinner plates (representing often nameless historical women) that was constructed over several years by a variety of artists. While “The Dinner Party” is large, grandiose, and completely dominates the space, Taylor-Wood’s piece is modest by contrast. A wall text near Taylor-Wood’s work explains the meanings of the earliest and most abstract plates in Chicago’s work. On a cold, dark evening such as the one in which I attended the exhibit, it is possible to hear speakers in yet a third room describing each plate in loving detail. The effect of these jarring juxtapositions is that the solitude presented in each of Taylor-Wood’s photographs is disturbed. They don’t belong here; they feel too squished by this monumental masterpiece which chronicles all the great overlooked women of history.
And, yet, somehow at the same time it does. Taylor-Woods’ exhibit is located at the entrance to “The Dinner Party”, which also serves as its exit. So as you pass Georgia O’Keefe’s place setting at “The Dinner Party” and walk out into the modern day, you encounter Taylor-Wood’s work, which in this setup becomes the end result of the feminist struggle. She takes her place as a modern female artist. Unlike the Primordial Goddess whose name is lost to us, or Emily Bronte who hid her true name, Samantha Taylor-Woods’ name is written for us all to see. In this way her exhibit is positioned in its optimal location.
As the name “Ghosts” suggests, the exhibition is haunting. The collection is simply a set of somewhat large (43 x 55.5 inch) framed color photographs of the English countryside. They are unedited by the artist. There aren’t any fancy tricks of light or composition. The photographs show the Yorkshire moors as they really are, and that is where their true horror lies. They are completely devoid of any human life. The only animal life is a tiny ram hidden in one of the pictures (they all lack individual names). The only sign of anything having to do with humanity is a single, broken stone fence, held together not with mortar, but with crude gravity. It is almost as though humans don’t exist in Taylor-Wood’s photographic world. The pictures are perfectly timeless. Nothing betrays their origins, save the technology used to create them. Supposedly they were taken in 2008 A.D. but they might as well have been taken in 1847 A.D., or even 1847 B.C.; there would be no change. The horrifyingly surreal landscape of the Yorkshire moors has remained constant throughout time. The photographs seem to suggest some terrible future for mankind. They seem to predict some silent age when man has been purged from this world, and only a few lone stones will stand as a solemn reminder of the beings that once walked this place. The moors won’t miss them; nothing will remember them. Many artists try to capture man’s fear of desolation, of solitude and abandonment. Taylor-Wood has captured it perfectly. Yet she has done so not through some abstract exaggeration, but with a simple photograph of an ordinary patch of land.
In terms of formal qualities the collection is quite impressive. All the pictures were taken with high quality Chromogenic photography.[3] I was really impressed by the high quality of the prints, as well as with their compositions and their intimate scale, which really drew me in closer. My only complaint was that there wasn’t even one super large print that I could lose myself in (but galleries rarely display those). Regardless, the prints are of such a high quality, that you can see the individual blades of grass in the foreground. You can see them bend to a mighty and invisible wind. Even the trees are bent by its will. This is no trick of photography. In this terrible world captured by Taylor-Wood’s lens, the trees grow diagonally and in curves; they dare not grow straight. The whole scene looks faded, washed out, and depressed. It is as though the cold has drained the life out of everything. The grass isn’t green, but a pale yellow, like ochre mixed with too much grey. It doesn’t grow uniformly, but in clumps and patches, clinging to the soil lest it be blown away. The sky is eternally overcast. The little world in the frame awaits a freezing rain that may never come. Time never moves in photographs. There are no strong lights and darks, no powerful shadows or bright lights. The clouds render everything a uniform dull shade, as though day and night no longer exist as separate entities.
And then there are the hills. The hills are perhaps the most terrifying thing of all. They are not gentle rolling hills. They are sharp and angular. I am fairly certain that when Taylor-Wood took her photographs she held her camera straight, but I have the feeling that the ground she stood on wasn’t flat. The hills surrounding her seem to change shape at random angles and are inundated with vertical lines. The whole world she captures is skewed at some ungodly angle, which seems to change constantly, and to stretch on forever. There is no end to this nightmarish terrain. It is as if the pictures are telling us the moors have gotten us, and we will never escape.
Taylor-Wood in fact owns a house in the Yorkshire moors, where these images were taken.[4] It is near the “Top Withens” a ruined farmhouse, which was supposedly the inspiration for the novel Wuthering Heights. To capture the feeling of the novel, Taylor-Wood set out from the farmhouse as if she were a character in the novel. She photographed what she saw, and being in a Gothic novel, she saw only the quiet solitude of nature. Thus the photographs seem ageless and eternal, frigid and lifeless. The wind is a very visible force. The cold is almost tangible. To link the images to the book, Taylor-Wood displays them with quotes from it, which offer the work a feminist interpretation, despite the lack of any obvious “feminine” imagery.
Even the title of the collection, “Ghosts”, betrays a deeper meaning then just recreating the feel of a book. In the prologue of the book, Mr. Lockwood is haunted by the ghost of Catherine. The book then details the events that eventually led up to her death. From this, we can deduce that this exhibit is about her, and the world she lived and died in. The photographs show a life of isolation. The bleak landscape would be constantly visible to any of Wuthering Heights’ inhabitants. It would be all they ever saw, day in and day out, the same pale grass and sickly trees. The wind would howl at them and try to knock them down. The cold would bite at them. There would be no escape from the farmhouse, no matter how beautiful it was. It would ultimately be a prison. Located in the middle of nowhere, in a timeless world, surrounded on all sides by the monstrous hills, kept inside by the bitter wind and the freezing rain, anyone trapped inside Wuthering Heights would be unable to leave of her own will, especially a woman such as Catherine. Cut off from any sort of help, she would always be at the mercy of men, and they too would be cut off from any oversight, free to behave however they chose. In this way, we can see how the photographs show the inescapable prison a woman might be confined to.
More generally, it also shows the inescapable prison all women used to be confined to. Just as “The Dinner Party” demonstrates the oppression of creative women by listing them and giving them names and forms, “Ghosts” shows the historic oppression of all women by showing domestic life as something that was inescapable. It should be remembered that Catherine died in childbirth, a “traditional” duty of women at that time. In truth, many of the characters in Wuthering Heights died of illness. The cold and the wind and the solitude killed them, just like it kills most of the grass and twisted the trees in Taylor-Wood’s images.
In the end, the title of the exhibit might also be a reference to all the characters in the story, as all of them had to die in the end. All of them now haunt the dreary landscape of the Yorkshire moors they were never able to escape in life. This is what makes the whole exhibition so frightening. All the ghosts were unable to escape their lives or avert their destinies, and deep down we’re all afraid that will be our fate, that we will be trapped all alone, in some horrible place with no chance of ever leaving. And even worse, we fear we may already be there.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_heights (accessed Dec. 20, 2010)
[2] Wall notes, Brooklyn Museum
[3] http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/sam_taylor_wood (accessed Dec. 20, 2010)
[4] http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/sam_taylor_wood (accessed Dec. 20, 2010)
Sam Taylor-Wood's Ghosts is on view at the Brooklyn Museum from October 30, 2010–August 14, 2011.
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