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Art memento mori6/24/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() However, there were more significant factors other than technical innovation that led to post-mortem photography’s demise.īy the end of the Victorian period, people began to see death in a different light – that the idea of “good death” is death without suffering that took people unaware, such as dying in their sleep. It has been said that the Brownie caused post-mortem photography to fall out of favor. The invention of the Kodak “Brownie,” made it possible for people to document everything from birth to death. Closed eyelids were often painted to make as if the dead’s eyes were still open. In some earliest forms of photography, such as tintypes and ambrotypes, a rosy tint was added to the cheeks of the corpse to make it appear life-like. Some of them were photographed with flowers. Often, the deceased adults were surrounded by their families or held by their parents or spouses. ![]() But whether or not the Brady stand was also used to support a dead person’s heavy weight for the post-mortem portraitures is still a subject for debate. It was designed to keep the living subjects steady during the long exposure. The “Brady stand” was a common metal device way back then. It was not uncommon for dead babies to be photographed in the arms of their mother.Īs for photographing adult corpses, they were fully dressed and often made sitting or standing. Sometimes, they were made to look as if they were only sleeping in beds, clutching their teddy bears. Children were often made to pose in their beds, alongside flowers and their favorite toys, or even alongside their families. ![]() Recently deceased persons were meticulously posed and made to look as if they were alive. The art “memento mori,” needless to say, flourished during the Victorian era. These post-mortem photos are called “memento mori”, which is the Latin phrase for “remember that you will die.” Families valued these post-mortem photographed portraits as treasured keepsakes and precious remembrances of their dead loved ones. It was not uncommon for Victorian-era families to pose for photographs alongside with their recently deceased loved ones. And because of the long exposure, the dead – especially children and infants – were often the most preferred subjects for making photographed portraitures. It is due to the fact that it could take up to about 15 minutes to develop an exposure. Not to mention it was expensive, as it was laborious and time-consuming. Photography was still a novel medium and a form of art way back then. A fifth of the children born at that time would not be able to reach five years of age. The average lifespan during the Victorian era was only about 40 years – if you lived past those years, you would have been lucky. According to author Robert Hirsche in his publication Seizing the Light: a Social History of Photography: “death occurred in the home and was quite an ordinary part of life.” Incurable diseases, poverty, poor sanitation, and miserable housing conditions crippled people way back then. This is not unusual, as death was all around them. Not surprisingly, people embraced death and the stark reality of it. Yet even in our modern culture and society, death is still considered as a taboo subject – it is discussed only when necessary, and even so, people talk about it in a hushed manner.īut during the 19 th century – especially in the Victorian era – death seemed to be commonplace. Famous people or not, no one is spared from it. ![]()
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