victorian post mortem photography

there's something unsettling about pictures of dead people, even when they are as beautiful and serene as these victorian post mortem photographs, where the dead is posed as if asleep. i bet the victorians too would have prefered to have a photo of the person while he or she was still alive, but photography was too expensive, and sometimes people died without there being a single photograph to remember them by. especially children, who had a higher mortality rate back then, was never photographed until it was too late. the moment after someone's death was the last chance to capture a memory of them, and post mortem photographs were displayed along with the normal family photographs.

















i did in fact paint some paintings ages ago with sleeping and/or dead people, inspired by victorian post mortem photography, but with a more contemporary look. i think the subject is easier for a lot of people to look at in a painting, although personally i have no problem looking at the photos; i think they're absolutely beautiful in a melancholic sort of way. i think the fact that you just can't tell if the subject IS in fact dead or if he or she is only asleep makes it interesting.

currator robert storr had a therory of the good grotesque that matches this effect; "it's like the duck/bunny trompe l'oeil, the drawing that looks like a duck at a certain angle but the bill becomes rabbit ears when it's turned on its side... is it a duck or a bunny?... they are locked and your mind keeps flashing from one to the other. good grotesques are sort of like duck/bunnies."