KNOWING DEATH: IMAGES OF WAR
IN MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
B. Trofanenko, PhD
Associate Professor & Canada Research Chair
Acadia University, Wolfville NS
November 24, 2012
“The Harvest of Death,” Timothy
O’Sullivan, 1863 (Library of Congress, PR065-793-2).
.
Slowly, over the misty fields of Gettysburg--as all reluctant to expose
their ghastly horrors to the light--came the sunless morn, after the
retreat by [General Robert. E.] Lee's broken army. Through the
shadowy vapors, it was, indeed, a "harvest of death" that was
presented; hundreds and thousands of torn Union and rebel soldiers-although many of the former were already interred--strewed the now
quiet fighting ground, soaked by the rain, which for two days had
drenched the country with its fitful showers.
Alexander Gardner, Photographic
Sketchbook of the War, 1866.
War, photographs & national iconography
Recurrent themes:
Sacrifice, horror, death, loss, hardship
Difference in context:
Photographs from past vs photographs from present
Historical distance:
Our sense of engagement & detachment
to the past involves more than understanding time
Content – Cost of war (loss)
Content – Purpose of war (militarism)
Form – Conventional (easily understood
and recognizable)
Form – Unconventional (polyvocal and
not easily understood)
Questions to ask: (1) how have the dead have been displayed, both in modern times
and the past? (2) the potential gains from such display; (3) who ‘owns’ the dead and
who can presume to ‘speak’ for the dead? And (4) how does avoiding death deal with
these aspects?