“Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road”
“Chutter Manzil Palace, With the King’s Boat in the Shape of a Fish. First attack of Sir Colin Campbell in November, 1857, Lucknow” (1858), by Felice Beato. Partial gift from the Wilson Centre for Photography, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
As Anne Lacoste makes clear in the catalogue that accompanies this expansive and engrossing show, on view through April 24 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Felice Beato “can be considered one of the first global photographers.”
A British citizen, born in Venice and raised on the Mediterranean island of Corfu, Beato (1832-1909) assisted his brother-in-law, James Robertson, in photographing the Crimean War (1856) – “the first war ever to be photographed” notes Fred Ritchin in his essay, “Felice Beato and the Photography of War.” In 1857, again with Robertson as well as with his own brother, Antonio, Beato traveled to Egypt, Greece, and the Holy Lands to photograph various subjects, and in the following year Beato headed for Calcutta and other areas (there were many!) colonized by the British.
Beato, who would go on to photograph the Sepoy Rebellion, the Second Opium War in China, the punitive 1871 American expedition to Korea, and later the Sudanese colonial wars, was something of what we might today call an “embedded” journalist. One difference between war photography then and now is that Beato could only photograph the aftermath of battles because his equipment was awkward and heavy, long exposures were required, and the work had to be processed on the field. Not surprisingly, perhaps, he photographed only the enemy dead (not the British dead) and even rearranged the corpses for greater effect – an early form of “digital manipulation.”
We are, arguably, rather desensitized to images of utter carnage and scattered bodies, but for the British public of the time the impact must have been particularly unsettling. Ritchin also wonders what it would have been like if we’d had photographs of these wars (wars of British aggression, it seems) taken by the opposing forces, and what their perspective on the conflicts would have been. As it is, because the British not only had the guns but the cameras, we have a one-sided and skewed, subjective viewpoint. But you may ask yourself, considering the dearth of images that seep out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, if matters have changed all that much.
“The Flag of the Commander in Chief of the Korean Forces,” (June 1871), by Felice Beato. Partial gift from the Wilson Centre for Photography, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Although Beato was technically unable to capture moments from the heat of the battle, it’s also possible that war photographs that depict an aftermath may resonate just as much or even more. There’s something about all that eerie stillness, even as the smoke still lingers. One may want to go back and look at Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others or even the catalogue for the Getty’s last major photography show, “Engaged Observers,” particularly the images by Philip Jones Griffiths, Susan Meiselas, and James Nachtwey.
Now, while corpses of the slain can be arranged for greater visual impact, that’s not so easy to do with the ruins of temples and palaces. Beato photographed an array of marvelous architecture in Peking and Mandalay and other cities of the Orient, but he also took pictures of the destruction that fighting wrought on Lucknow (of which you can find out much, much more in “India’s Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow,” on view at the L.A. County Museum of Art through Feb. 27). Some of these are breathtaking panoramic views, and one question keeps recurring to this viewer: What do these places look like today, 150 years later, hammered by time and tourism?
But Beato wasn’t just a war photographer. In 1863 he opened a photography studio in Yokohama, where he spent 20 years. He later moved to Burma, to Mandalay, where he also established a studio. Many of his pictures ended up in travel books about exotic lands. For example, his are the very first portraits of Korean natives. We gaze upon these people, all of them dead for many decades, and they in turn gaze back upon us – such is the magic of photography – but could they possibly understand us, or we them? Apart from still wanting to kill each other, it’s a very different world.
Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road runs concurrently with Photography from the New China through April 24, but in some ways will complement Brush & Shutter: Early Photography in China, which opens Feb. 8. The catalogue for Felice Beato sells for $39.95, contains 162 illustrations, and is available through Getty Publications at (800) 223-3431. Related events include two Curator’s Gallery Talks, given by assistant curator of photographs Anne Lacoste, on Jan. 13 and March 17. Lacoste also gives a talk about Beato in the Museum Lecture Hall at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27. The Getty Center is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. Free admission; parking, $15. Call (310) 440-7300 or go to getty.edu. ER