Revd James Julius Wood, Greyfriars' Church

The Rev. James Julius Wood (1800-77) was chaplain to the 42nd Gordon Highlanders, a group of soldiers stationed on the island of Malta. David Octavius Hill (1802-70) used this calotype as the basis for a portrait of Wood in the Disruption Picture, even though the minister may not have been present at the signing ceremony (Wood is shown above and to the left of the atlas in the right foreground). As with Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) (see 84.XM.445.15), Wood is pictured older in the painting than in the photograph. It took Hill more than twenty years to finish the oil; during this time he evidently decided to update the appearance of many of the sitters, aging them by adding beards, spectacles, and gray hair.

This use of artistic license also extended to photographs by Hill and his partner Robert Adamson (1821-48). The original negative for this plate was altered to include a very specific reference to Wood's position—the title Scotch Church Malta 1843 was drawn in ink on the book he is holding (Hill's inscription at the bottom of the negative provides the date of the image and identifies Wood's parish but incorrectly gives his first name as John). Also, faint traces of a headrest, an apparatus used in many of the earlier prints as a device for limiting the movement of a sitter, can be seen, indicating that the negative was changed in an attempt to mask this tool. Hill and Adamson obviously felt compelled to adjust the photograph in order to create a specific, finished image that went beyond a kind of preparatory sketch for the painting. In other words, they were viewing the calotype as a work of art unto itself.

Anne M. Lyden. Hill and Adamson, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1999), 18. ©1999, J. Paul Getty Museum.