Social Commentary

Social Commentary: What is it?

Thinking critically, write down the term and define it in your own words.

Next, brainstorm and consider how this might relate to realism.

Forms/modes of social commentary

Literature! Photography Music Painting/sculpture

What are some modern examples of social commentary on our own society?

The Simpsons The Colbert Report The Daily Show The Onion SNL Animal Farm Avatar

John Lennon’s “Imagine”

Imagine there's no Heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today

Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one

American Realism as Social Commentary

Reaction to Romanticism: with the Civil War, Industrialization, Battle for Women’s Suffrage, and Slavery issues, the world was not a beautiful, glorified place

Occurs after Romanticism – WW1 (roughly 1860 – 1910-ish)

In what way do these photos create a more Romanticized view of war?

Social Commentary through Photography

Realism was driven forward with the advancement of the art of photography

- The camera obscura (dark room) was the early form of capturing an image.

- The first permanent photographic image

was taken in 1825, by securing an image

on a pewter plate by covering it with a

derivative of petroleum. - In early stages, it would take

40 minutes or more for an image to be

captured on the paper or substance being

used.

Photography: Changing the way the world knew war

Photography began to flower just before the Civil War.

Photography during the Civil War had a wide-reaching impact on the public's perception on everything from their leaders to the nature of warfare.

Images of everyday life are also depicted for the first time in the Civil War.

The Photography of Matthew Brady

Brady and his team of assistants traveled around

and behind the armies, documenting the death

and destruction that characterized the Civil War.

He was the first man to try to photographically

document the Civil War.

"My greatest aim has been to advance the art of photography and to make it what I think I have, a great and truthful medium of history.” - Mathew B. Brady

Dedicated his life to “…preserving and perpetuating the history of the country” –Mathew B. Brady

Historians say that photography changed the war in several ways. It allowed families to have a keepsake representation of their fathers or sons as they were away from home. Photography also enhanced the image of political figures like President Lincoln, who famously joked that he would not have been re-elected without the portrait of him taken by photographer Matthew Brady.

Intense images of battlefield horrors were presented to the public for the first time at exhibits in New York and Washington; many later reproduced by engravings in newspapers and magazines of the time.

"Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us

the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it,“

New York Times on Oct. 20, 1862

Images were taken by small-town photographers and traveling camp photographers, which combined topped 5,000 by the time war broke out in 1861. More than a million such images were produced during the war.

Officers had their photos taken as well and often passed them out to the men as a morale booster. New ways to reproduce photos gave birth to cards.

Some of the Civil War photographers, including Brady, have been criticized in recent years because it appears they moved corpses to create more graphic images. Historians say that it wasn't a common occurrence. Given that each photographer needed an entire wagon worth of equipment and chemicals, he said, these post-battle photographers faced their own set of challenges.

"Each time they moved, they had to secure bottles of chemicals and plate and each time they stopped, it had to be level." –Eric Zeller, Discovery News

Photographers also battled flies that were attracted to photo chemicals and the stench of death.

"How they were able to look at the scenes of dead bodies and be calm enough to set up their equipment and try to portray reality, there is an unsung heroism there," said Alan Trachtenberg, retired professor of American history at Yale University. "It takes guts to do that."

Brady’s Photographs of the Civil War

You will now see slides of Brady’s Civil War photographs. As you view each slide, jot down your first reactions to each image and what the image illustrates about war..

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QuickTime™ and a decompressor

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Image debrief:

Social commentary: You just saw pieces of social

commentary. Think about it: why would Matthew Brady take these photographs?

What was his goal and purpose? How do you think people reacted to

seeing these photographs?

Ambrose Bierce 1842-1919 The sardonic view of human

nature that informed his work – along with his vehemence as a critic, with his motto "nothing matters" – earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce.“

Bierce’s style often embraces abrupt beginnings, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war.

In 1913, Bierce traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on that country's ongoing revolution. While traveling with rebel troops, the elderly writer disappeared without a trace.