Finished first half of On Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War. The authors organize the book around juxtaposing an art historian's interpretation v. a literary scholar's interpretation as to the volume's significance. Tackled Anthony Lee (AH) first and it read like butter. About to read Elizabeth Young.
For an antiheroic and antinarrative reading of Lee's argument, I have several issues with his argument, especially with his conclusion that Gardner's relatively scant inclusion of AFAMs in the Civil War function towards re-presenting a broader "stereoview." Considering Gardner's supplied dialogue necessary to convince publishers of the importance of such image (rigid photos, little to no action limited by cameras in the 19thc, landscape views), several of the quotes he offers undermines his nonpartisan position (re: black egg like head swelling with learning things about the world, how the locals can't even bury their own dead, the volume's price at $150 in the friggin' 19th c and his consumer base).
Furthermore, Gardner exaggerates the physiognomy of the black "posers," whereas the openness of simple landscapes are rote details recounting events passed. Of course the images provided abolitionists with visual aids, but it is worthy to entertain how Gardner's inclusions of blacks was simply opportunistic in the sense that they're readily available to capture as the war's ended, to clean up and bury both Southern and Northern dead (who would pose 30 minutes for one photo near rotting flesh?).
It's clear Lee approaches this visually-based interpretation preemptively, especially with some of his glaring attachments of primary sources not necessarily derivative of Garnder's work, but Brady's. He's not proving anything particularly unknown about the deficiencies of said interpretations. Printed in 2007, he's about a decade late stressing how art history should balance visual interpretations with other interdisciplinary methods.
