What follows is a rewrite / re-edit of my Masters Thesis in Visual Art and Design, titled "Visions of Death". This is a document I have wanted to revist for some time, and here, now, some decade and a half after its original publication, I have reworked and added clarity to the text that a younger version of myself could not achieve.
Chapter 2: Sleep as Death
Kastenbaum returns to tell us that Sleep can be considered :
'one of the most easily communicated analogies to death'23,
Many a parent describes death as a "forever sleep", and in an examination on the topic of photography and death, Jay Ruby asserts that this practice is likely to be :
'as old as Western culture itself'24.
Sleep as death can be traced to classical Greek mythology, where Hypnos, the god of sleep, had a twin, Thanatos, the god of death25. Many examples of visual art and photography use a sleeping figure to represent the dead, and many other images contain a dead figure that is apparently sleeping. This chapter will investigate and examine several images where both the dead can be seen as sleeping and the sleeping are represented as dead.
The body of work produced by the field of post-mortem photography contains many images that portray the dead as though they are sleeping, and was a popular phenomenon in both the United States and the United Kingdom from the 1880s and beyond26. In such images, the dead were laid out on beds, or couches as though sleeping, sometimes surrounded by mementos that as described by Barbara Norfleet's book, Looking at Death, as being objects that 'often overwhelmed the body.'27
The concepts of death and sleep in post-mortem photography are so deeply entwined that it is difficult to objectively analyse and comment upon such images if, as Susan Sontag in her text On Photography suggests:
'All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.'28
The relentless melt of time is a concept that is difficult to fathom. In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes provides an example in which the melt (of an image's meaning, value, or importance) is described. Barthes refers to a photograph of Lewis Payne taken in 1856. In that year, Payne attempted to assassinate the secretary of state, W. H. Seward. The photograph of Payne was taken in his cell prior to his execution. Barthes finds the image catastrophic, as 'he is going to die'29, but at the same time, Payne is already dead:
'This will be and this has been; I observe with horror an anterior future of which death is the stake. By giving me the absolute past of the pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in the future.'30
By looking at the photograph of Payne in such a way, Barthes appears to support and strengthen Sontag's idea that all photographic images are memento mori, while also implicating the passage of time and notion of looking back (through time) at what has been and what shall be:
‘because each photograph always contains this imperious sign of my future death that each one, however attached it seems to be to the excited world of the living, challenges each of us.’31
The still image, however, remains problematic. A static image betrays its deceased or sleeping subject, as there is no way to be certain if a subject is dead or alive just by looking at a photograph. This was made apparent in the 1870s by the French actress, Sarah Bernhardt who posed in a coffin, still alive, pretending to be dead. It is said that Bernhardt:
'obligingly slept in a coffin for photographers, though she used a normal bed for more private slumber.'32
In early post-mortem photography the deceased were rarely represented in coffins, however, this practice became more popular as coffins became more exquisite and finely crafted. In the late 1800s, death was regarded 'as the last sleep'33. As a result, the deceased were often represented in beds, surrounded by inviting pillows and other fine fabrics. Perhaps this made the idea of death more inviting for the survivors.
While there is no widespread evidence of others 'playing dead' for the camera, in that era, there is much evidence to suggest the popularity of post-mortem photography that depicted its subjects as though sleeping. Jay Ruby asserts that, the post-mortem photographs of deceased or still born infants, the photographer's intent is to portray the subject as though sleeping, surrounded by pillows, fine ruffled sheets, and other elements of symbolism to suggest, but not conclusively assert that the subject has passed away.34
The images of deceased infants in Jay Ruby's book Secure The Shadow are those of deceased infants, as the book has its own intent and objective – to provide a history and analysis of why post-mortem photography was considered important. But with Bernhardt’s ‘faked’ image of death, we can never be completely certain of the image's credibility.
This credibility is now diminished even further, in the year 2025 - with the advent and absolute proliferation of artificial intelligence. There was also an era of photo manipulation and deception - even in the darkroom, right from the start of the photographic image - but this, and related topics, are better discussed elsewhere.
If one stumbled across the same image of the deceased, but apparently not deceased infant in a book not about the subject of death and photography - how would the viewer's response be different? The infant is apparently sleeping, but how could we possibly know that at the time the subject was photographed that they were no longer alive? Would the thought of death even cross our minds?
A shift in the representation of the dead in post-mortem photography occurred between 1880 and 1910, where 'the entire body, usually in a casket … [made] it impossible to pretend that the deceased were asleep, or “dead, yet alive:35. Such images are plentiful in Secure The Shadow. While the images do appear to carry a deep sadness, the subjects and individuals are unknown to the reader, and thus make it difficult to assign any personal emotion to the images. We believe that the people represented are dead because they have been placed in a casket, and are sometimes surrounded by mourners, perhaps referencing, in a way: Millais painting we discussed earlier: The Artist attending the Mourning of a Girl (1847).
Ruby's commentary insists that the subjects are dead. However, armed with the knowledge that Sarah Bernhardt was alive when photographed inside a casket we can never be truly certain. Did early photographers claim their subjects were dead to drum up more business, or was it a more honest affair in that niche of industry?
The post-mortem image therefore cannot be trusted as an object of undeniable truth, and raises many of its own problems and questions. It is however important to note that problems such as this are not as bad as it may seem. The uncertainty which surrounds many of the post-mortem images which Ruby discusses in Secure The Shadow allows the viewer to come to their own conclusions and connect with not only the images, but the people inside the images, even if it is in a somewhat disconnected and impersonal manner.
It is my view that intimacy can only be achieved through the viewing of post-mortem photographs if the deceased is known to the viewer, as Walter Benjamin contends:
‘The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the fleeting expression of a human face. This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty.’36
It is not only in post-mortem photography in which the dead appear to be sleeping. In The Young Martyr (1853), by French painter Paul Delaroche, a young, beautiful woman is represented as being dead. Delaroche’s image depicts a young Christian Martyr drowned in Rome’s Tiber River, hands bound, and laden with other symbolism37. The halo that appears above the subject's head indicates that that she is radiant and sanctified, unlike Millais' Ophelia who was viewed as nothing more than a 'poor wretch'38.
Delaroche uses other symbolic elements to refer to the passage of life from the body. The first of these is the sunset (or sunrise) in the background, which can be read as either the end of the subject's life, or perhaps the beginning of a new life. Two ‘horrified figures’39 look to the young woman, lamenting her death, and adding a touch of tragedy and drama to the image.
The Young Martyr remains an important image due to its religious content. Unlike the post-mortem photographs in Secure The Shadow, Delaroche’s painting resonates and connects with a much larger audience due to what it depicts. It is, however, distinctly different from any photograph – it beautifies the deceased and makes her appear radiant, innocent and a subject to be pitied.
Another example, in which the dead are represented as sleeping is evident in Linda Bergkvist's Gone. Gone can be seen as 'peaceful yet sad, because the character depicted is no longer alive'40. The character appears peaceful, but there are many symbolic hints as to the character's lack of life – the first of these is obviously the title, but as the artist explains - 'I think it was in the skin tone that made the difference. Or perhaps the textures.'41 There is also the mysterious bottle held in the character's hands. Antidote or poison?
Gone is a peaceful, yet complicated image. While it can be referred to as beautiful, it is a fictional representation that is difficult to view because of what it represents – a death, the death of the other, slipped away to sleep. Nonetheless, Gone resonates due to its use of symbolic elements that are drawn from fundamental associations that have been formed by Western Culture throughout history.
Sleep and death remain linked not only through images, but also through language. Kastenbaum notes that ‘Some people today still replace the word death or dead with sleep when they want to speak in a less threatening way.’42 By comparing the state of death to the state of sleep, we can more easily come to terms with the concept of death. Unlike sleep, however, death is considered a permanent and irreversible state.43 - Unless, of course there are dramatic advances in the fields of medicine, chemistry, and biology that allow human beings to be physically re-animated with their consciousness intact. Issues of cloning and re-animation raise several fascinating, speculative ethical and social issues that are better reserved for science fiction.
Footnotes:
23: Kastenbaum, 39.
24: Jay Ruby, Secure The Shadow: Death and Photography in America (MIT Press, 1995), 63.
25: Ibid.
26: Barbara P Norfleet, Looking At Death (David R Gordine Publishers Inc, 1993), 96.
27: Ibid.
28: Susan Sontag, On Photography (Penguin Books, 1979), 15.
29: Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (Vintage Classics, 2000), 96.
30: Barthes, 96 [Emphasis in original].
31: Barthes, 97.
32: Eve Golden, “From Stage to Screen: The Film Career of Sarah Bernhardt” http://www.classicimages.com/past_issues/view/?x=/1997/june/bernhard.html (Accessed 12/11/10)
33: Ruby, 72.
34: Ruby, 65.
35: Ruby, 72.
36: Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, (New York: Random House, 1968), 220.
37: Regina Haggo, “Martyrs to their art: painters make saints sexy [Final Edition]” The Spectator, December 28, 2002. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed October 25, 2010).
38: Kimberly Rhodes, “Degenerate Detail: John Everett Millais and Ophelia's Muddy Death”, 44.
39: Haggo, “Martyrs to their art: painters make saints sexy.”
40: Linda Bergkvist, “gone” http://www.furiae.com/popup.php?image=gone (accessed 15/08/10)
41: Ibid.
42: Kastenbaum, 39.
43: Unless there are dramatic advances in the fields of medicine, chemistry, and biology that allow human beings to be physically re-animated. Issues of cloning and re-animation raise several ethical and social issues that are far too broad to be considered here.