MATHEW BRADY & IMAGE OF HIST - Hardcover

PANZER M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1560987936 ISBN 13: 9781560987932

Publisher: Smithsonian, 1997

Synopsis

Discusses how the Civil War photographer constructed an idealized American history based on image as much as fact, portraying a stable republic during its fragmentation and creating a national portrait gallery of immortal leaders. UP.

About this title

Review

Much of our image of the Civil War era comes from the photographs of Matthew Brady, and in Matthew Brady and the Image of History Mary Panzer, curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D. C., examines the work of this American icon. Brady, she writes, "used art to forge a relationship between photography and history, but when the memory of Brady the artist vanished, we came to accept his images as facts." Brady composed his photographs along classical models, always seeking the heroic in his subjects--who, until the advent of the Civil War, tended to be the business and social leaders who could afford his fees. Panzer's account of Brady's wartime work is especially revealing: where assistants like Timothy O'Sullivan and Alexander Gardner favored realistic studies of the dead in battle, Brady favored sweeping panoramas that obscured individual soldiers. For all that, it is Brady we remember as the man who, a contemporary journalist observed, "has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war." The book is richly illustrated with the work of Brady and his carefully credited assistants, and it deserves a place in the library of anyone with an interest in 19th-century American history.

About the Author

Mary Panzer teaches at Hunter College and New York University and writes on photography and American history. She lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Smithsonian
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1560987936
• ISBN 13: 9781560987932
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 232