Remembering Death Marion Peck

Remembering Death
Marion Peck

Perhaps our first reaction to these pictures is one of shock. We are startled by the strange practice the people of the 1800s had of photographing their deceased loved ones. Today, though post-mortem photography still exists, it is not a common thing to do.

When we look a little longer and deeper, we begin to feel the heartbreaking poignancy of these images. Looking into the eyes of a grieving mother, or seeing on the face of a child the ravages of the disease it suffered from, our hearts begin to ache. We feel the terrible presence of death, but not in the way we are used to. There is an intimacy, a loving quality in these photographs that we do not associate with images of death, and so they look “shocking” to us.

The Victorians knew death much more deeply and intimately than we do now. Death was present, a reality, not the abstraction it is to us today. Rather than shutting it away, people of that period acknowledged their relationship to death with beauty. They honored their love for the deceased through painting, sculpture, jewelry, clothing, and photography.

In contrast, when death comes close to us in the modern world, we don’t really know how to act. Somebody dies, and the body is whisked away as quickly as possible. Grieving is awkward. Mostly people really don’t know what to say or do. It’s just hoped that we can “get back to normal” as soon as possible. Instead of funerals, we have “celebrations of life.” We all just want to think positively, be healthy, get to work, do something productive. Modern capitalist society expects manic optimism from us. Death becomes an indignity, an embarrassment to be ignored as much as possible, almost an obscenity. Each of us must deal with it silently, privately, because speaking about our loss is not really acceptable.

Yet images of death surround us. It is presented to us mainly in the cold, dispassionate light of the news media, where it is blandly reported over and over again, the repetition only causing it to become more distant and unreal. Occasionally, some extraordinarily awful news story will break through our shell, and for a moment or two we will be flooded by scorching waves of compassion or sickening moments of terror, but we put those feelings away as quickly as we can, and get on with our busy day.

Though the natural emotions associated with death are repressed, images of death emerge in our culture with ever increasing strength, frequency, and ferocity, repeating endlessly and ever more graphically in television shows, video games, and the movies. Our horror movies need always to be more appalling, our video games more violent, our Halloween decorations (which have exploded in popularity) more disgustingly grotesque, to penetrate the numbness of our denial.

Perhaps the price we pay for our casual dismissal of death is the feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness that permeates our lives, a sense of malaise or depression. Our ideas about death are, by necessity, interwoven with our ideas and feelings about the significance and meaning of our lives and our place in the cosmos. When we ignore and deny death, we become hollow, less alive. Acknowledging and honoring death makes us slow down; it makes us reflect and deepen. It shuts up the chatter we cram into our heads to escape the silence. And maybe what we need more than anything else is some silence, some stillness, some deepening.

In a sense, these photographs are like ghosts. They are the shadows of people who once lived actively and breathed in a present moment, who saw the blue sky above their heads and might have felt the same passions, joys, and sorrows in their hearts that we feel in our own. If we can quiet ourselves enough to spend some time with these ghosts, contemplating, listening to them, we may learn from their great wisdom. It is the wisdom of the ancestors, of those who came before. What we are, so once were they. What they are, so we shall be.

Beyond the Dark Veil
Post Mortem & Mourning Photography from The Thanatos Archive
Jack Mord
Hardcover | sewn binding | 200 pages | 7" x 9" | isbn 978-0-86719-796-9
Co-published by California State University, Fullerton, Nicholas & Lee Begovich Gallery, Grand Central Press, and Last Gasp.

A compilation of more than 190 extraordinary and haunting photographs and related ephemera. “Beyond the Dark Veil” documents the practice of death and mourning photography in the Victorian Era and early twentieth century.

Supplemented with original newspaper articles, clippings, funeral notices, memorial ephemera and more, the collection is a journey through a part of our past that is fascinating, moving, and possesses a melancholy beauty. The images in “Beyond the Dark Veil” speak to us: they speak of love, loss, lives cut short, brave final hours, shattered families, and the depths of the human spirit. Contains 194 images of hand-colored photographs, albumen prints, ambrotypes, cabinet cards, carte de viste, daguerreotypes, gelatin silver prints, opaltypes, real photo postcards, stereoviews, tintypes, and supplementary articles and related ephemera.

About the Archive

Located in Woodinville, Washington, The Thanatos Archive houses an extensive collection of early post- mortem, memorial, and mourning photographs dating as far back as the 1840s. The online version of the archive, hosted at Thanatos.net since 2002, offers a searchable database of over 2,300 scanned images, with scans of new acquisitions being added on a regular basis. In addition to the main online archive, hundreds of additional images and material can be found in the community discussion forum, including hi-resolution enlargements, genealogical information, and more.