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This is the catalog for an exhibition of ninety nineteenth-century photographs drawn primarily from the world-class collection of Michael G. Wilson. Included are the starkly beautiful photographs of Sergeant James McDonald's surveys of Palestine and Jerusalem; recently discovered photographs by Ernest Benecke; and the rare photographs by Maxime Du Camp taken in 1850 as he traveled with Flaubert. With the invention of photography and the increasing popularity of travel in the mid-nineteenth century, the Holy Land became one of the most photographed places on earth. Interest in Jerusalem and Palestine was particularly pronounced in England, partly because of England's need to control its routes to the riches of India, but also because of Britain's cultural identification with the people and lands of the Bible. Imperial ambition and deeply ingrained cultural associations resulted in a surge of photographic activity in Palestine. McDonald's photographs from surveys of Jerusalem and the Sinai epitomize the dual imperatives of Bible and Empire. Photography provided a new standard for authenticity in pictorial representations. Early photographs were considered the ultimate bearers of "reality" at a time when viewers had not yet lost their nave faith in the objective accuracy of photography. Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, the Holy Land drew legions of photographers: amateurs recording a stop on the Grand Tour, academics pursuing archaeological theories, military surveyorsall trying to capture the truthfulness of a land that had enormous spiritual, emotional, and political connotations for most of the Western world. What they saw, and how they saw it, are the themes of this beautifully recorded collection.
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Review of Revealing the Holy Land
Review Author: Paul Hansom
Affiliation: University of Southern California
Revealing the Holy Land: The Photographic Exploration of Palestine is a remarkable achievement that combines over 300 rarely seen nineteenth-century photographs with a perceptive factual and historical commentary. While the book is essentially a record by Sergeant James McDonald of the Royal Engineers, it suggests much more about the interactions between photography and the Victorian rediscovery of the Holy Land, and promises to be an important contribution to the burgeoning field of photographic studies.
While the book's principal focus is on the three decades between 1850-1880, the collection draws on photographs made by occasional visitors, as well as committed professionals working in the Holy Land at this time. Maxim Du Camp, traveling with Flaubert in 1850, has a series of personal photographs here, as does Auguste Salzmann, who was primarily interested in archeological remains and architectural remnants. In the same way, Ernest Bencke's commercial photographs lie beside those of the Rev. George Bridge's pictures of religious inspiration, providing a fascinating sense of the complex interaction between entrepreneurial activities and missionary zeal. Views of biblical sites compete with images luridly depicting Middle Eastern "types," standing as reminders of how they were directly responsible for both stimulating pilgrimages to the region, as well as spurring middle-class tourism to this exotic place.
The core of photographs, however, comes from the Royal Engineers' survey of the Jerusalem and Sinai regions between 1864 and 1868 and are primarily the result of James McDonald's quirky and eclectic vision. It is precisely because McDonald's activities were connected with a topographical expedition, whose own aims were primarily technical and observational, that his images stand out as all the more important. While avoiding the sentimental excesses of the commercial market, or the drier evangelical and historical objectives of the missionaries and archeologists, McDonald's record of life in Jerusalem occupies a distinctly documentary position.
In more than 300 photographs, McDonald covers Jerusalem and other city sights, as well as stunning panoramas of deserts, valleys, and mountains. Yet these photographs also show his personal fascination with the region and the photographic form, and reflect the subtle ways he went above and beyond the call of duty. Mastering the tricky nature of the glass negative and heat-sensitive developing emulsions, McDonald's record becomes a testimony to his own pluck and ingenuity, as well as his own growing comfort with the region.
Yet these photographs also illustrate the tangled motivations behind British military and imperial interests in the area. As Kathleen Howe's accompanying essay points out, the activities of the Royal Engineers themselves were far from neutral or objective. For Britain, the Holy Land was of central strategic concern, as it lay on the overland route to India. Since the defeat of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign in 1798, the British slowly extended their power in the region, shoring up a disintegrating Ottoman Empire, supporting the Egyptian Rebellion of 1831, and engaging in a military build-up during the Crimean War (1853-1856). While these events are pictorially absent from the collection, there is essentially a silent fulfillment of this imperial mandate in the extension of British iconic control over this particular region. The interlinking of engineering and photographic recording marks a subtle extension of British ideologies, turning indigenous peoples into practical forms of information for the metropole.
Howe's book is of great importance to those scholars interested in this much neglected sphere of British influence, mainly because it provides such a rich and fascinating record. The sheer bulk of photographic material here provides a stunning and arresting vision of a wild and barren place. That ideas of God, commerce and the Army are all so clearly present on this religious landscape illustrates the complexities of the imperial world view without comment. While we can enjoy these wonderful images, Howe reminds us there is an all important economic and political context in operation, one which can only enrich our understanding of the complexities of Victorian culture.
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