Creating Désastres: Andrieu's Photographs of Urban Ruins in the Paris of 1871

Abstract

Photographs made during or shortly after events linked to the Paris Commune have long been narrowly interpreted as political documents or statements, most of them condemning the short-lived radical government. A little-known series entitled Désastres de la guerre by J. Andrieu demonstrates that these images, and responses to them, encompass a much wider variety of readings. This article examines the series' material production, titling, and allusion to Goya's Los desastres de la guerra, subjects, dissemination, and reception, and considers its broader contexts of visual and literary responses to war and the Haussmannization of Paris.