Sacred Ground: The Cemeteries of New Orleans (stunning duotone photographs of New Orleans legendary cemeteries) - Hardcover

Brantley, Robert S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1616898216 ISBN 13: 9781616898212

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 2019

Synopsis

Sacred Ground is a sumptuous photographic portrait of New Orleans's legendary cemeteries. Robert S. Brantley celebrates the otherworldly landscapes, intricate ironwork, evocative memorials, and stately monuments as vibrant sites of remembrance. New Orleans history is further revealed through biographies of twenty individuals whose grave sites are among those featured, including entrepreneurs, celebrated musicians, a world-class violin maker, an ex-slave turned minister, a ship's captain, and a young soldier felled by Spanish flu while in basic training for World War I. The rich duotone photographs, organized by cemetery, are followed by an index identifying the tombs and their iconography; an introduction by S. Frederick Starr provides background on New Orleans cemetery history, culture, and burial customs. Sacred Ground provides a stunning exploration of the traditions born of New Orleans's unique religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity.

About this title

About the Author

Robert S. Brantley has been photographing the cemeteries of New Orleans for forty years. He is the author of Henry Howard: Louisiana Architect. His photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Metropolis, and Preservation.

S. Frederick Starr is the author of Southern Comfort: The Garden District of New Orleans.

Review

"A master photographer and knowledgeable student of architectural history, Robert Brantley beautifully achieves his goal of bringing life into the subject called death."
- Hilary Somerville Irvin,
architectural historian

"This book of black and white photographs not only records the appearance of some of the more extraordinary tombs, but also includes 21 short biographies of some of the dead. Although the sculpture is not as finished or expressive as that in Italian cemeteries, some of the architectural constructions are as fantastic and lively in all manner of historical styles.
- The Art Newspaper (UK)

"Sacred Ground combines a historical record of New Orleans burial customs, outstanding black and white architectural photography, and well-researched, poignant stories of love,
loss, and expressions of grief."
- Christopher E. Cenac Sr. MD, FACS, author of Hard Scrabble to Hallelujah, Volume 1: Legacies of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

"Robert Brantley is one of the foremost architectural photographers in the South; his attention to form and function give the viewer a distinct impression of what it is like to move in and around these 'small cities.'"
- W. Brian Piper, PhD, Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation Fellow for Photography, New Orleans Museum of Art

"Darkness exists because light gives it permission to exist," photographer Robert S. Brantley said. "Shadows make everything cohesive in my photographs. Light dances when it meets darkness. It's always a matter of light dancing. I want my photos to have an ethereal quality."That's what makes the images in his new book, "Sacred Ground: The Cemeteries of New Orleans," so special. Brantley said his goal was to show the rigidity of stone against the sky, the clouds, the grass, the trees, and that's what he has done; his photos have motion and energy, shadow and beauty."
- Times Picayune/ New Orleans Advocate

Robert Brantley's images resonate within, compelling us to contemplate love, family, purpose, loss, profound sadness, beauty, decay, connection, continuity, and maybe - ultimately - the marker we will leave in this world."
- Sandra L. Stokes, former president of the Louisiana Landmarks Society

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1616898216
• ISBN 13: 9781616898212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192