Historical moments in Pictures - Part 3 - TooDoo

Historical moments in Pictures - Part 3
A collection of some historical and famous pictures - enjoy !
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In popular historical books and magazines, images are mostly used as illustrations to present history vividly and entertainingly. Behind this is often too simple an understanding of the character of historical images. They are conceived as an immediate and realistic rendering of reality, as a window to the past. Of course, historical images show the past, but they do so in a mediated and broken way. For the historians, images - such as texts or certificates - belong to the so-called sources. These are those legacies of the past from which we relate our knowledge about them.
Photographs occupy a special place as picture sources. They allow - at least in their outward appearance - a closer approach to past reality than other types of images. The technically generated image can only show what is actually in front of the lens; Unlike the painter, the photographer can not add anything, but of course he can prepare the object or the scene.
At any rate, photographs are the best sources for event history. Let us take the example of a demonstration: we can see that it took place at all, what goals it had (if posters or banners are recognizable), which (perhaps otherwise well known) people were where they were, how numerous the crowd how her mood was. Of course, we must be careful when we want to make interpretations and generalizations. Because a single picture shows only one individual case. In order to be able to judge whether it is representative, we must either have several similar pictorial representations or additional information. If photographs from 1914 show volunteers enthusiastic about the war, it does not necessarily follow that everyone was enthusiastic; Research has recently made corresponding relativizations. If you did not like it, you stayed home - there are no pictures of it. In this case, image sources can not convey a complete picture of the historical situation.
Often we want to know what people looked like who lived before. These can be personalities from the general history or people who are of regional or local interest or for specific institutions, or ancestors from their own family. That there was no portrait similarity in the Middle Ages, is a truism. But even a Renaissance portrait does not necessarily have to show the sitter realistically; How close it gets, is difficult to check.
In general, there is only the possibility to compare different images with each other: In Columbus, for example, then the results diverge pretty much. On the occasion of the World's Fair in 1893, 71 Columbus portraits have been assembled, all representing the discoverer differently - we do not know what Columbus really looked like. The artists used to beautify and stylize; finally, the picture had to please the client as well. The value of the portrait lay precisely in the exaggeration of the person, in the depiction of individuality and character. After all, such image sources enable us to approach a person from whom we can not get a picture by using textual sources at all.
Again, photography means a leap towards reality. However, she, too, does not necessarily show a person or her face undisguised. In the 19th and into the 20th century, in the portrait photo in the studio were stagings with a background screen, chairs, small tables, columns, artificial plants usual in which the people were arranged. This photo of a little boy in a dress from the year 1903 shows appropriate accessories - up to the very inappropriate book here.
In addition, there are the technical conditions: At minutes of exposure time could not capture a smile. Nevertheless, not least the special genre of the identification photography photography proves that with this technology a new state was reached, to hold the appearance of persons. And the sinking costs of photography democratized the image of people over time.
Music: Pachabelly - Huma-Huma
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