Bhuddist Temple at Ali Musjid
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Bhuddist Temple at Ali Musjid is a 1879 by John Burke, a Impressionism work, depicting Ireland, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a quiet stone temple nestled in a rocky valley, soldiers resting nearby. This isn’t a painting—it’s an early photograph. Burke lugged heavy glass plates and a darkroom tent across Afghanistan during war. Most shots show battles, but here he framed a moment of calm. The temple’s curved roof and carved walls stand out against the rough hills, almost like a pause in the fighting. Look up the technique impasto to see how painters later built thick paint to mimic this kind of texture.
The subject of this album is the Second Anglo-Afghan War, which was fought from 1878 to 1880. John Burke was the first photographer to photograph extensively in Afghanistan and the main photographer covering that conflict. The technology of the day did not permit action shots of battles. As is usual for early conflict photography, the pictures are landscapes of the sites of momentous incidents, views of camps and civil and military infrastructure, and portraits of the soldiers and their leaders.
This album includes some of the earliest photographs of Afghanistan.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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