Within the last year, I've had occasion to take two trips
through the landscape of the Civil War, an area of interest
to me due to the strength of our photo collections recording
that event. An odd experience. Little in those lands stir
the passion captured by the 19th Century cameras. Some
pristine areas remain, it is true. And the resonances are
real. Still, much to be seen now are the children of Henry
Ford.
Slipping casettes into the car stereo, I provided soundtracks
to the rolling view. And a certain realization crept slowly to mind.
The music and the image are survivors of the period. Certainly
we cannot experience the fabric of those societies, but we
gain much of their thought and emotion. I suspect that we
hunger for the validity of their lives.
There is an intensity to the portraiture of the first years
of photography, despite the utter simplicity of the composition.
Comparable effect in contemporary imagery is only achieved
through rather baroque stagecraft and juxtapostion of concept.
Listening to voices of the period, Stephen Foster, Shakers,
and Dixieland minstrels, while looking, really LOOKING, at
those surviving landscapes, I understood how hard the pioneer life
was, and how simple gifts can be princely.
These people survived severe trial, and death was a far more
constant companion than now. And so the open, square composition,
so typical in our War and Shaker photos, reflect a life lived
more fully, if with fewer options. No query as to what the
camera SAW; it saw what was in front of it. Little matter that
portions of the image were often manipulated, as with skies.
In a strange way, even Gardner's coarse allegories at Gettysburg
reflected this belief; there was a work to do. That work was a
blindly insistent demand that *A* concept of republican democracy
would prevail. Yes, subterfuge produced the image, but a
constancy of purpose dominated the esthetic.
Such determination seems both naive and even intolerant today.
Even so, such a center to life makes for prodigies. Reflecting
upon this, I have come to a far greater appreciation of the
simplistic faith that stares back across a century or more
from long dead eyes. Some wonderously honest practitioners
wandered the backroads of the United States, and left us
a warp and woof that can remind us that lives of stunning and
stunned comfort have never been the norm for humanity.
Just some thoughts from the blue highways. I really gotta
get there more often.
-- Michael McCormick aa683@cleveland.freenet.edu