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"Direct Evidence"

Matthew Israel
Mar 15, 2013 2:19PM

Many antiwar works since the 20th centurty—especially photographs—have made use of the "direct evidence" of casualties—or in the words of Maurice Berger, “the awful human waste of war”—as a means through which to protest war. The general idea behind the use of such images of violence—and this may feel quite obvious to state—is that exposure to the viewer and the shock produced would help eliminate violence. Such presentations are nothing new for Western art; they have been the stock-in-trade of works deemed antiwar historically, dating back to what is considered one of the first antiwar artworks, Jacques Callot’s 1633 series, The Miseries of War

Matthew Israel