By Buck Zaidel and Ronald S. Coddington
Portrait painters had been telling stories for centuries before photography arrived.
A painted likeness was never simply a face. Artists placed their subjects beside columns, draped them in rich fabrics, opened windows onto distant landscapes, or surrounded them with books, maps, musical instruments, or tools of their profession. Every element contributed to the narrative, revealing something about the sitter’s status, occupation, aspirations, or character.
19th-century photographers inherited this artistic tradition.
This tradition carried naturally into photography, beginning with the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839 and continuing through its glass and iron plate cousins, the ambrotype and tintype. It also shaped the development of paper photography, culminating in the carte de visite in the late 1850s. Produced from a glass negative, the carte format made the production of multiple prints more efficient and transformed portrait photography just as the Civil War created an unprecedented demand for soldiers’ likenesses. Despite photography’s growing popularity, the process remained largely in the hands of skilled professionals who thought of themselves as artists. They made deliberate choices about pose, lighting, composition, and setting.
“Sometimes the most revealing detail in a portrait is not the one placed at the center of the composition. It is the quiet object waiting to be discovered.”
The painted backdrop became one of their most versatile storytelling devices.
Many studios relied on pastoral landscapes or elegant architectural scenes. With the start of the war, however, photographers increasingly invested in martial backdrops featuring tents, fortifications, cannon, stacked muskets, billowing flags, and distant warships. These painted settings instantly established a military identity.
The backdrop, however, was only one part of the composition.
Like the portrait painters before them, photographers often added foreground objects to create depth and interest. These items could communicate something about the individual. A soldier might rest a hand on a stack of books, display a treasured photograph from home, pose beside a flag, or include personal possessions that reflected how he wished to be remembered.
How much of this was directed by the photographer and how much came from the sitter is impossible to know. The answer probably varied from studio to studio and from day to day. A photographer with a waiting room full of customers may have had little time for artistic collaboration. On a slower afternoon, however, photographer and soldier may have worked together to build a more personal portrait. The resulting image became more than a likeness—it became a carefully constructed statement.
Military portraits offered especially rich opportunities for visual storytelling because the soldier arrived carrying his profession with him. Uniforms, weapons, accouterments, and camp equipment functioned much like the tools seen in civilian occupational portraits. Together with the backdrop, they could tell the story of a man preparing for war.
This carte illustrates the point.
The unidentified private stands before a painted military backdrop that gives way to a peaceful shoreline with a small boat along the shore, and leafy trees in the distance. At first glance, the composition seems familiar. A closer look reveals how carefully the scene was arranged. A stand of muskets rises behind him. His forage cap, belt, and cap box have been neatly placed in front of the stacked arms. His knapsack stands upright nearby. Beside it rests a pair of well-worn army boots, one at attention and the other at rest.
Then the viewer notices something unexpected.
The soldier is not wearing those boots. Instead, he wears an unusual pair of soft slippers or homemade camp shoes unlike the standard issue footwear of the federal army. Were they sent from home to replace his worn boots? Were they simply more comfortable around camp? We cannot know.
That uncertainty is precisely what makes the portrait so compelling. The backdrop establishes the military setting. The equipment identifies the sitter as a soldier. But it is the humble pair of discarded boots—and the comfortable shoes now on his feet—that invite us to imagine the human story behind the photograph.
Sometimes the most revealing detail in a portrait is not the one placed at the center of the composition. It is the quiet object waiting to be discovered. Whether working with brush and canvas or camera and glass plate, artists have long understood that a portrait can tell a story far richer than a simple likeness. The challenge—and the pleasure for us—is learning to read it.
Buck Zaidel is a MI senior editor. He is a co-author, with Dione Longley, of Heroes for All Time: Connecticut Civil War Soldiers Tell Their Stories.
Ronald S. Coddington is editor and publisher of MI.
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