Interior of the Secundra Bagh After the Slaughter of 2,000 Rebels, Lucknow, 1858
These rebel bodies were gathered from a healed battlefield, and placed, along with the figures by Beato to form a narrative. This brutal battle had occurred six months before. With the dry dusty earth his palette, Beato disinterred and gathered clothes, heads, bone shards, ribs, and so on. Shattered doors from the Bagh probably served as stretchers for the detris. It was a battle fought, but nearly forgotten, were it not for his recreation—a photographic memento mori. Beato was not the first war photographer, but he was the first to cover several wars, create connected visual narratives and the first to photograph the bodies (of the defeated enemy only).
(Lois Conner, ‘Felice Beato - A Photographer on the Eastern Road’, China Heritage Quarterly, No. 26, Jun 2011.)
