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JSWaters | all galleries >> Gone A-Wandering >> Boston >
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27-SEP-2007

Soldiers and Sailors Monument, 1877, Boston Common
A Civil War Memorial

Canon EOS 5D
1/80s f/3.5 at 30.0mm iso200 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Guest 14-Dec-2007 19:32
Living people are as brainless as these vandals. Isn't that always behind every war?
Phil Douglis14-Dec-2007 18:13
Glad to see you remove the redundancy, Jenene --your original title is right there, scrawled in the picture itself. Your intention to comment on the incongruity of how art can be treated in art-loving Boston comes through too. And you are right about how the viewer will inevitably bring his or her own interpretation to bear on your photograph. An image that provides food for thought, that stirs the imagination, that provokes emotion, is a substantive one. And that is what you have given us here, Jenene. Soldiers and civilians alike are mutilated by war, just as the vandals have mutilated this memorial to them. You are not excusing the vandals -- the desecration of public art is despicable, and the morons who do this kind of thing should be apprehended and made to pay for the restoration, even if it takes the rest of their lives to do so. Your image, at least for me, castigates both those who make war and those who destroy art -- they are rooted in the same ground: mindlessness.
JSWaters14-Dec-2007 16:20
I didn't intend for this to be an anti-war image. I was wandering Boston's streets, enjoying the public homage the city pays to it's long and varied part in America's hisory. This monument is actually quite tall, with steps leading up to bronze plaques on each side. If I had not climbed the steps, I would never have seen the vandalism on each plaque. The intial incongruity for me was the damage done in a city that so proudly displays these monuments at every turn. I consider myself a proud American, but more, someone who reveres art in it's many forms, so I was disgusted by the vandalism.
Having said all this, I'm happy to have anyone interpret this as an anti- war image, or a sad commentary on how we treat our relics. It's all in the perspective in which you look at things. And JD, I believe our own biases play a role in how we view everything, especially photographs that are open to several interpretations. -J
Guest 14-Dec-2007 14:29
That's interesting that you post this image without additional information, leaving a lot of room for interpretation. I don't know if these statues have always been decapitated, or altered by some peace activist, those having tagged it as well. Indeed, that leads to an anti-war image, but I can't tell how much my own bias plays a role there.
Phil Douglis14-Dec-2007 06:04
This is a powerful anti-war image, Jenene -- the monument celebrates a war, and wars, if we look at them logically, are essentially mindless. People and property are destroyed, families broken apart, billions of dollars expended, and then the war ends and the former enemies usually become friends and the cycle repeats itself with new enemies over and over. Tolstoy, writing in "War and Peace" said that men are like bees -- periodically they swarm out of their hives to make trouble and then go back to the hive as if nothing had happened. These headless people symbolize war as a mindless activity. While the vandalism here is the work of others, your ownk image of it, featuring at least six headless people, is strikingly incongruous and makes the viewer consider the nature of war, its cost, and its purposes. It is the most substantive image you have posted to date from your East Coast trip in terms of activating the imagination of your viewers. (I would suggest changing your title, however, so as not to redundantly repeat the graffiti on the soldier.)

This is the probably the last image I will comment on before my trip to Vietnam begins tomorrow. It is an ironic and appropriate send me off, Jenene. For more than a decade, the United States virtually destroyed Vietnam in order to "save it from communism." We did not accomplish that goal, and next week I will be photographing in a country that is our ally, trading partner, and has one of the most exuberant economies in Asia. All of which makes us look back at the 60's and 70's and wonder why that war had to happen? Thirty years from now, others may well ask the same questions about our current "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan. This image of yours is a tangible reminder of mankind's follies, Jenene.