Think
back to the funerals you’ve attended, particularly the open casket affairs. Do
you remember details of the deceased? Their expression, the tone of their skin,
the contours of their face? One final question: did you take a picture?
In
today’s photomaniacal culture, we take pictures of everything: our pets, our
food, and most often, our body parts. But we still tend to shy away from taking
pictures of our dead. I find this curious, for it wasn’t always so.
For
thousands of years, burials – at least of elites – have been accompanied by
some sort of remembrance. Long before photography, this came in the form of
death masks. Made from an array of materials, wax, plaster, or in some cases,
precious metals, these masks memorialized the dead as they appeared in life
(minus the pulse, of course).
One of
the oldest and most famous was that of King Tutankhamen. The young king, who
died around 1400 B.C., was interred with a splendid gold mask weighing a
whopping twenty-four pounds, although the accuracy of the mask is debatable. Since Tut’s
time, death masks have been a common means of memorializing the dead. From
Mary, Queen of Scots in the 1500s to Sir Isaac Newton in the 1700s and, closer to home,
Civil War hero and president, Ulysses S. Grant in the 1800s, these masks capture
intricate details of the deceased, as they appeared prior to interment.
But all
this changed when photography burst on the scene…
In 1837,
Frenchman Louis Daguerre, using a concoction of silver-plated copper, silver
iodide, and mercury, was able to create the first permanent image. Referred to
as Daguerreotype, this early photographic technique, like most new trends,
began as an expensive luxury. Louis’ early photograhy captured images of family and
friends and was more expedient and practical than hiring a portrait artist. Parents
finally had a means of recording their broods for posterity. The only problem
was, many broods did not survive to adulthood. Combine newly developed photo
ops with high child mortality and you have a recipe for a morbid yet practical new
Victorian fad, postmortem photos.
Known in
Latin as memento mori, these ghoulish
keepsakes became fashionable on both sides of the pond. At a time when family
photos were a desirable commodity, capturing images of the deceased, especially those of children, took on a whole new
meaning. The death of a child meant little time to record the child’s image, so
when death came swiftly, so did the postmortem photographer. The child was
traditionally posed in lifelike manner, sometimes alongside favorite
toys or cascades of flowers, or tucked among living family members. Over time,
as new techniques made photographs easier and less expensive, even those of
modest means could capture images of their dearly departed. 
Postmortem
photos also accompanied the taming of America’s Wild West. What better way to
publicize the death of infamous outlaws than to exhibit photos of their corpses?
From the Dalton Gang (whose bank robbing was cut short when the docile
townsfolk of Coffeyville, Kansas, gunned them down), to Jesse James (same
business, same bloody end), to George “Bittercreek” Newcomb (former member of
the Dalton Gang who was offed by his amigos in exchange for a fat bounty),
photos of dead outlaws served as proof of the inherent dangers of criminality on
the frontier.
In
today’s modern culture, postmortem photos fall into a singular category accepted,
even coveted, by a morbid public: the dead celebrity. We seem to crave photos of
the famous who have met their ends. There are even websites dedicated solely to
dead celebs. Celebritymorgue.com sports photos of an array of famous corpses, from
loveable dictators like Mussolini and Stalin to ghastly morgue shots of Marilyn
and Tupac. Even nonhuman notables have made the cut: P.T. Barnum’s prize-winning
elephant, Jumbo, was memorialized in a postmortem photograph after he was inadvertently
struck by a train while moseying across the tracks (poor Jumbo).
Postmortem photographs have evolved through the ages. What was once a respectable, albeit macabre, means of memorializing the dead has morphed into a tool for
gawkers and sensationalists. But even in its current twisted state, postmortem
photography has a way of satisfying a visceral desire in all of us: the chance to
look death in the face.
Here's a good read on mortuary customs around the world.
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