Victorian visions of war & peace: aesthetics, sovereignty & violence in the British Empire, c.1851-1900

Uittreksel

"A study of how artists and photographers shaped imperial visions of war and peace in the Victorian period. In an era that saw the birth of photography (c. 1839) and the rise of the illustrated press (c. 1842), the British experience of their empire became increasingly defined by the processes and products of image-making. Examining moments of military and diplomatic crisis, this book considers how artists and photographers operating "in the field" helped to define British visions of war and peace. The Victorians increasingly turned to visual spectacle to help them compose imperial sovereignty. The British Empire was thus rendered into a spectacle of "peace," from world's fairs to staged diplomatic rituals. Yet this occurred against a backdrop of incessant colonial war-campaigns which, far from being ignored, were in fact unprecedentedly visible within the cultural forms of Victorian society. Visual media thus shaped the contours of imperial statecraft and established many of the aesthetic and ethical frames within which the colonial violence was confronted."--

Inhoud

Introduction: Visual culture in the global field, c.1851-1900 -- Exhibiting global conflict: Metropolitan spectatorship and military sights from the Crimean War (1853-1856) to the Uprising (1857-1858) -- Mutinous vision: Indian photography, colonial insurgency and the 'Civilising Mission', c.1857-1859 -- 'Additional Horrors': Photography, colonial violence and the archive -- Sketching 'on the spot': Shaping the Victorian experience of colonial war, c.1854-1900 -- 'Save me from my friends!': The art of diplomacy in the age of its technological reproducibility -- Negative histories: Encountering colonial photography 'in the field' in Burma, China and Tibet, 1855-1904 -- Specimens, suspects, citizens: Photographing an imperial polity in Cawnpore, c.1857-1860 -- The colour of sovereignty: Colonial portraiture and the Coronation Durbars in British India, 1877-1911.