Upper Bala Hissar, from West
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Upper Bala Hissar, from West is a 1879 by John Burke, a Impressionism work, depicting Ireland, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a quiet hillside fortress in Afghanistan, walls glowing in late sun, soldiers standing small against the stone. This photo was taken during the Second Anglo-Afghan War, but it’s not a battle scene. Early cameras couldn’t catch fast action, so photographers like Burke documented the places where history happened—camps, roads, and forts like this one. His work gives us a rare, calm look at a war most people only read about. To see more of Burke’s war photography, 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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