Angle of Taku Fort at which the French entered
1860
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1860
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Angle of Taku Fort at which the French entered is a 1860 by Felice A. Beato, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a black-and-white photo of a crumbled stone wall with a jagged hole where cannon fire blew through. Beato took this picture right after the battle, so the rubble is still fresh. He was one of the first photographers to follow soldiers into war, making images that told the story of the fight like a news report. The photo feels quiet now, but it was meant to show the cost of war in real time. If you want to see how early war photography shaped later work, look up the technique of impasto.
Beato’s photographs of the Second Opium War are believed to be the first that captured a military campaign in progress. Within that project, an extended sequence of photographs of the Taku Forts—to which this image belongs—exemplify the idea of creating a narrative recreation of the battle, a process that would later be followed by American photographers documenting the Civil War.
Felice Beato was one of the pioneers of war photography.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Felice A. Beato and Felice Antonio Beato are collective signatures used by the brothers Felice Beato and Antonio Beato, who were both pioneering photographers in the 19th century. They were noted for their depictions of…
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