A History of Violence
Rodolfo Morales
Throughout history, photographs have many times been the only unbiased source of media information when it comes to informing the public about wars and events around the globe. Wars such as the Spanish Civil War and World War II are no exception to this rule. A war photography exhibit at the International Center of Photography specifically exhibited photographs from these two wars taken in Spain and in Normandy. Through these very graphic photographs, viewers get a sense of what the bloodshed was truly like during those time periods.
The first part of the exhibit displays photographs taken of civilians in Spain during the time of the Spanish Civil War. Some of these photographs were actually the more horrific ones in the exhibit, crudely displaying the gruesome corpses of the dead in Spain. For example, there was a series of four photographs displayed together on a wall titled “Air Raid Victims in the Morgue, Valencia, May 1937.” The first picture depicted a man lying haphazardly on a table, dark red blood leaking from his head. The second picture was that of three dead women laid next to each other with deathly smiles and their eyes half open, almost as if looking back at the viewer with cynical smiles. The third picture was that of a man on a tiled floor with blood smears and a bloody cloth over him. As if this was not horrific enough for the viewer, the man had an excruciating look on his face, as if his last moments of life were his most painful. Finally, the fourth photograph depicted another man lying dead on a table, but instead of seeing his face the viewer is looking up at his half shoe less feet.
The horrible realization the viewer comes to as he/she is passing by these photos is that these were not Spanish soldiers that were killed in the photographs. These people were civilians that were the unfortunate victims of an air raid, and as is made quite apparent by the positions and expressions of their bloody cadavers, they did not enjoy a peaceful death. Some of these photos seemed like they could have even been extracted from Holocaust photo exhibits due to their extreme nature.
Another section of the war exhibit also focused on American soldiers in World War II. One of the more powerful images of this exhibit was called “American Soldier killed by a German Sniper, Leipzig, Germany, April 18, 1945.” The photograph depicted an American soldier sprawled out on the floor dead, with another soldier standing right next to him, on the lookout for the sniper that killed his partner. Blood is seen sprawling out from the body of the dead soldier, and in the darkness of the room behind the dead man are seen two other soldiers sitting in the darkness.
The impact of this piece is also profound on the viewer, and brings him/her to another realization. The soldier in this photo was not going to go back home victorious; he was not going to be in an army commercial trying to get more men to join the armed forces; his life was over. Many soldiers just like this man lost their lives during World War II. However, the photo demonstrates its timelessness as it reminds viewers that this country is once again losing young soldiers in a similar fashion in Iraq.
The war photography exhibit at the International Center of Photography was both disturbing and enlightening for viewers at the same time. The graphic nature of the photographs only emphasized the all-too-real aspects of war, and only made viewers long even more for peace in this all-too-violent world.