Midway in Jugdalluck
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Midway in Jugdalluck is a 1879 by John Burke, a Impressionism work, depicting Ireland, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a black-and-white photo of a rocky pass with British soldiers marching through it. This isn’t a battle scene—it’s the quiet before or after. John Burke was one of the first photographers to document war this way. The technology back then couldn’t freeze fast action, so he focused on the land and the people moving through it. The photo feels still, but the history it holds isn’t. If you want to see more of Burke’s work, look up John Burke (Irish, 1845–1915).
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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