Photography and Death
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Photography and Death

Audrey Linkman

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eBook - PDF

Photography and Death

Audrey Linkman

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About This Book

The idea of photographing the dead is as old as photography itself. For the most part, early death photographs were commissioned or taken by relatives of the deceased and preserved in the home as part of the family collection. Once thought inappropriate and macabre, today these photographs are considered to have a beneficial role in bereavement therapy.

Photography and Death reveals the beauty and significance of such images, formerly dismissed as disturbing or grotesque, and places them within the context of changing cultural attitudes towards death and loss. Excluding images of death through war, violence, or natural disasters, Audrey Linkman concentrates on photographs of natural deaths within the family. She identifies the range of death-related photographs that have been produced in both Europe and North America since the 1840s and charts changes in their treatment through the decades.

Photography and Death will interest photo, art, and social historians and practitioners in the field of bereavement therapy, as well as those who wish to better understand the images of long-lost ancestors who gaze back from the pages of family albums.

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Information

Publisher
Reaktion Books
Year
2012
ISBN
9781780230122
Topic
Arte
Subtopic
Fotografía
between 
Oscar 
Gustav 
Rejlander’s 
Sleeping 
Child
(illus. 
4
) 
and 
a 
Southworth
and 
Hawes 
post-mortem-portrait 
of 
an 
unknown 
child 
(illus. 
5
) 
shows
how 
closely 
the 
two 
states 
could 
be 
made 
to 
resemble 
one 
another 
in 
the 
hands 
of 
competent 
photographers. 
This 
aesthetic 
approach 
to 
the
portrayal 
of 
the 
dead 
echoed 
the 
conventions 
of 
portraiture 
from 
life
where 
professional 
rhetoric 
exhorted 
photographers 
to 
secure 
an 
idealized
portrayal 
of 
their 
sitters 
by 
highlighting 
their 
good 
points 
and 
concealing
any 
perceived 
imperfections. 
Photographers, 
themselves, 
were 
conscious 
of
the 
implications 
of 
this 
approach. 
One 
conceded 
that 
his 
post-mortem 
work 
adds 
another 
to 
the 
chapter 
of 
lies; 
but 
who 
can 
blame 
the 
perpetra-
tor? 
Ought 
he 
not 
rather 
to 
be 
blamed 
if 
he 
revealed 
the 
horrible
truth, 
which 
with 
every 
fond 
look 
would 
tear 
open 
the 
wound 
of
despair, 
which 
by 
other 
means 
has 
passed 
into 
the 
healing 
state 
of
resignation?
21
The 
death-as-sleep 
portrait 
was 
clearly 
intended 
to 
comfort 
the 
bereaved
and 
console 
the 
survivors. 
As 
we 
shall 
see, 
other 
treatments 
emerged
later 
but 
the 
death-as-sleep 
tradition 
persisted 
into 
the 
twentieth 
century.
Within 
this 
tradition 
the 
metaphor 
of 
sleep 
influenced 
every 
aspect 
of 
the
22
No 
digital 
rights
4 
Oscar 
Gustav 
Rejlander, 
Sleeping 
Child
,
mid-19th 
century, 
platinum 
print 
on 
card-
board 
mount.

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