I am taking class on art history and for the culminating activity I have to pick a culture and choose a paradigm of that is specific to it. I want to do the assignment on a culture that was never really explored in the class so I can learn something new and not choose something that is obvious (such as pyramids being a paradigm of Egypt). Anyways, I have always been really interesting in the Victorian period so I am going to write my paper on that culture and explain how postmortem photography is a paradigm of it.
Postmortem photographs are basically pictures of the deceased. It became very common in the 19th century to take photos of family members that had recently passed away as a form of commemorating their life. Additionally, photographs came at a much lower cost than the previous tradition of portrait paintings.
This stuff is definitely disturbing considering the social norms today, but there is something really hauntingly beautiful about them and I think they embody the period very well.
No comments:
Post a Comment