PICTURING VIOLENCE: AESTHETICS AND THE ANXIETY OF CRITIQUE

This essay written by Mark Reinhardt is about images of suffering. We are given the term "aestheticizing suffering" as our base of understanding his stance on the matter. Reinhardt believes that these images of suffering are artistically and politically reactionary meaning they invite passive consumption (the reader/viewer) and narcissistic consumption, condescension (the trait of displaying arrogance by patronizing those considered inferior) and even sadism. A lot of the imagery of war and suffering we see in magazines, newspapers on the t.v. and online avenues only give you a glimpse of what is really going on. 


Another theme of this essay was the photographic representation of suffering as an instrument used to "abuse and humiliate prisoners." Are images of people being tortured and suffering really to inform and mobilize relevant issues or are they only really causing injury to the individuals pictured or the culture and cause they stand for? Being photographed like many men/women captured in war makes you question why  we are given these images and of what benefit they are having on us, the reader. "The aestheticizing tendency of photography conveys distress and ends by neutralizing it." This quote sums up a lot of what Reinhardt is calling into question. Not knowing these people pictured, the images begin to group into past images we have seen of this nature, totally neutralizing our view we become the passive consumer. One image pops into my mind when thinking about images of war that are so overly saturated in media we have become unengaged by its tragedy. 

These images we all have seen before, whether they are the same images or different ones we all remember this tragedy. Yet having seen these so many times, scratch that thousands of times on numerous platforms they begin to stop having impact on us. This arouses the issue of the importance of the context of circulation and/or display. Why is it so important to thrust these graphic images and burn them into our minds forever remember this image? We cannot do anything about what has happened, we cannot help these people and ultimately we are left feeling emotionless. 

One more main theme is defining aesthetic's? "Are we supposed to be cheered by the triumph of artistry?" This question begs to be answered, does the image have more impact because it is composed formally, should it matter, why should we even care? Reinhardt goes to define aesthetic as a noun then as an adjective and each definition mentions beauty- how are these war images or images of people suffering beautiful? Are we supposed to be happy and exclaim how beautiful, when we see something so disturbing but formally composed? He questions how this affects our rendering of the images, if in fact it does make us pay more attention to what is going on in the images or detracts from the human suffering depicted. BEAUTIFICATION-IN-THE-SERVICE-OF-PLEASURE. I find this phrase to be humiliating, it makes humans seen like emotionless beings only looking for spectatorial gratification via photographs. 

Another couple images of war that I cannot forget no matter how hard I try. The worst thing is that these are a staple figure in our history, so we are forced to remember these things. (Images from the vietnam war-last image of a monk in America burning himself during the Vietnam war era).