The Orphan Image

Abstract

This contribution offers an example of a monumental narration arising out of images of death. This is the case of Amos Humiston, a sergeant at the front in the American Civil War who, as he lay dying, chose to look at the photograph of his three children. The monumentalising cadaver’s pose transforms him into an exemplary individual whose story deserves to be recounted and to whom a name needs to be given. A bronze plaque including the photograph of the children was built in his memory; the plaque is one of the most common forms of monument undergoing reconsideration in contemporary art. What it mineralises here is not so much the corpse of the soldier but his story as a whole.