The Cemetery Photographs of Ansel Adams

The joy of finding things out after the fact, is, in my opinion, more fun than finding things out ahead of time. For instance, if you know about the Grand Canyon beforehand, and then you go to see it, you will probably go, “Wow ... “(while emitting a heavy sigh). On the other hand, if you never knew of its existence, and you stumbled upon it, you would be absolutely stunned.

On a smaller scale, this happens to me a lot. I visit many cemeteries. While I may look up their location beforehand, I generally do no research as to the interesting things inside, so to speak. I prefer to discover them myself.

In certain cases, I get upset when I find that I've missed things, like all the mobsters’ graves at St. John Cemetery in Queens, NY. On the other hand, I was quite tickled when I happened upon, all by my lonesome, U.S. President Grover Cleveland‘s grave marker in New Jersey’s Princeton Cemetery.

I had visited a few small cemeteries in Long Beach, California, in 2013. Sunnyside Cemetery on Signal Hill was singular in that oil derricks surrounded the neighborhood. While doing some research on the cemetery for a blog I wrote about one of its few statues (see “Angel in the House” - The Female Victorian Ideal?), an angel, I happened upon some information related to the only other life-sized statue in the small cemetery – a non-angel. While I found the latter to be less interesting than the former, I did make a few photos of it – some with the derricks in the background, some without. I prefer the photos without the derricks (one of mine is at the beginning of this blog).

"Angel of Sorrows," sunnyside Cemetery, Long Beach, California

It seems that master photographer Ansel Adams preferred the derricks. That is, he made photographs of this statue in 1939 with the derricks in the scene. Well, I cannot say for sure that he did not photograph the statue without the derricks, but this is the one he printed and is part of his vast portfolio. When Adams made these and other photographs in the Los Angeles area in 1939-40, the oil derricks were taller and the trees were shorter.

"Cemetery Statue & Oil Derricks, Long Beach, Calif." - Ansel Adams, 1939
http://www.westongallery.com

Modern oil derricks near Sunnyside Cemetery

While not exactly kismet, it is interesting to me that Adams and I photographed the same statue, seventy-four years apart. Reportedly (ref.), the statue is called "Angel of Sorrows." What I wonder about is why I preferred to photograph just the statue? For me, the relic of someone’s existence should stand alone. For Adams, perhaps the same relic is shown in the context of the bigger picture, amidst the needs and wants of the larger human family,. As a conservationist, perhaps photographing the oil derricks so close to a consecrated burial ground was social commentary. Certainly, this other image (below) that he made for Fortune magazine in 1940 draws even greater attention to that.

"Sunnyside Cemetery in Long Beach," Ansel Adams, c. 1940 (Ref.)

Adams’ other famous cemetery photograph, by the way, "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941" is more pictorial than documentary. The photograph (shown below) is arguably "the best known and most sought after photograph in the field of fine-art photography" (ref.). You may be surprised that other master photographers have also made photographs in cemeteries. Walker Evans photographed St. Michael’s Cemetery in Bethlehem, PA (1935), Paul Strand photographed headstones in Vermont (1944), and even Edward Weston photographed graveyards and funerary chapels in New Orleans (1941).

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 - Ansel Adams (ref.)

Other than Adams’ “Moonrise” photo, none of these other internationally famous photographers became internationally famous for their cemetery photographs. Perhaps they were still cutting their teeth to find their niche. They have since become widely known and have achieved great acclaim for photographing other subjects – landscapes, people, still-lifes. Perhaps their studies of form and shape related to cemetery architecture was part of their formative process of seeing the world. Perhaps it is mine, as well.

I'd like to conclude this post with an explanation of Ansel Adams' Long Beach photographs, which I quote from the Los Angeles Public Library website. You may find this amusing!

"Around 1939, Ansel Adams was commissioned by Fortune magazine to photograph a series of images for an article covering the aviation history of the Los Angeles area. For the project, Adams took 217 photographs showing everyday life, businesses, street scenes, aerospace employees, and a variety of other subjects, but when the article, "City of Angels," appeared in the March 1941 issue, only a few of the images were included. In the early 1960s, approximately 20 years later, Adams rediscovered all of the photographs among papers at his home in Carmel, and sent a letter of inquiry to the Los Angeles Public Library, asking if the institution would be interested in receiving the collection as a donation. In his letter, Adams expressed that, "the weather was bad over a rather long period and none of the pictures were very good" and "if they have no value whatsoever, please dispose of them in the incenerator [sic]." He went on to write that "I would imagine that they represent about $100.00 minimum value." In response, the Los Angeles Public Library gladly accepted the gift of 135 contact prints and 217 negatives, and the staff concluded that a fair value for the collection would be $150.00"

References and Further Reading:

Los Angeles Was Once a Forest of Oil Derricks (Some pretty amazing 1940s-era photographs of Long Beach, CA in this article!)

Christmas in Bethlehem (a Cemetery Traveler blog I wrote which includes information about Walker Evans' cemetery photography)

“Angel in the House” - The Female Victorian Ideal?

For Valentine’s Day, let’s talk a bit about sex, or more specifically, “sensual” cemetery sculpture. I’ve written in past blogs (see link below) about how Victorian artists – painters and sculptors mainly – took liberties with the human form with regard to cemetery figure studies. So I’m used to seeing anonymous mourning art female figures clothed in diaphanous veils. The image you see at left is a life-sized bronze figure that is the door to a mausoleum.

According to the article, "Western Beauty Picture Perfect:" (http://beautyundefined.weebly.com/western.html)

"Idealized" Victorian woman (ref.)

"Femininity and frailness were characteristics that made women beautiful in the Victorian Era, such characteristics were often categorized by the woman's hourglass frame with an extremely small waist. However, the idea of beautiful was seemingly impossible to achieve because a woman with more fat symbolized wealth which was also seen as beautiful. Therefore, women were supposed to be frail, feminine, have curvacious hips and a large bosom yet have impossibly small waist. In order to achieve this virtually impossible figure, women relied heavily upon hoop skirts and more importantly, a corset." (Ref.)

Angel Gabriel (photo by Krista Baker)

Commonly seen in cemeteries are the female cemetery angels or other female mourning figures. We also see Adonis-like male angel statues, though they are quite rare. More common are Michael the Archangel and Gabriel with his horn. Anonymous male cemetery statues are far less common than anonymous female statues - females being the "designated mourners" in Victorian mourning art. The male figure or bas-relief we see more typically bears the actual likenesses of the deceased male in that particular grave. (See my blog post "The Art of Sensual Statues in Cemeteries" for further information on this topic.)

The faces of many angels and other mourning figures often appear androgynous; however, the body tells another story. It is typically an idealized female body, such as the one you see at right. Carved from a variety of materials – granite, marble, bronze – these sensual  figures walk the tightrope between spiritual purity and earthly desire. Undeniably conflicting, yet totally human forces of nature. In Western artistic tradition, the ability to accurately depict the female figure is what most defined artistic talent. Most professional Victorian-era sculptors were male, and sensual statues provided an opportunity for them to bring their artistic fantasies to life for a noble purpose.

When in Long Beach California in 2012, I found a rather interesting angel. This human-sized marble sculpture in Sunnyside Cemetery stands before a cross, her hands crossed over her chest. But wait – is it a her? On second glance, it appeared to be male. Long hair yes, but Michael the Archangel is typically depicted with long hair. Androgynous face, yes, but what about the body? Feminine? Difficult to say! Certainly not the curvaceous Victorian ideal. Upon closer examination, there appeared to be female breasts (as you can see in my photo below). One might say "normal-sized" breasts, as opposed to the genetic mutations typically sculpted.

Sculptor Julian Abele (Mural Arts Program)

The statue is highly unusual in this respect. Why is the artist’s rendering like this? She is certainly not the idealized bosomy, shapely Victorian female angel that one normally sees (see full body photo with red flowers, below). The sculptor obviously did this intentionally, but why? Is the angel supposed to bear an actual likeness to the deceased, the "angel in the house?" Let's take a look at how women were viewed in Victorian times.

From the Wikipedia entry, "Women in the Victorian era:"

"The status of women in the Victorian era is often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between the United Kingdom's national power and wealth and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions. During the era symbolized by the reign of British monarch Queen Victoria, women did not have suffrage rights, the right to sue, or the right to own property.

Representations of ideal wives were abundant in Victorian culture, providing women with their role models. The Victorian ideal of the tirelessly patient, sacrificing wife is depicted in The Angel in the House, a popular poem by Coventry Patmore, published in 1854."

Sunnyside Angel

‘My memory of Heaven awakes!

   She’s not of the earth, although her light,

As lantern’d by her body, makes

   A piece of it past bearing bright.

And though her charms are a strong law

   Compelling all men to admire,

They go so clad with lovely awe

   None but the noble dares desire.'

 -Excerpts from Coventry Patmore's The Angel in the House  

"Following the publication of Patmore's poem, the term “angel in the house” came to be used in reference to women who embodied the Victorian feminine ideal: a wife and mother who was selflessly devoted to her children and submissive to her husband." (Ref.)

Victorian wife "submissive" to her husband?

So perhaps the Sunnyside Cemetery angel is a more accurate representation of the Victorian "angel in the house," a woman suppressed, whose wings of stone prevent her from rising to a higher social station.

References and Further Reading:
Read the entire Coventry Patmore poem The Angel in the House  
The Art of Sensual Statues in Cemeteries - Cemetery Traveler blog posting by Ed Snyder
Sunnyside Cemetery, Long Beach, California