Quaker Guns, Centreville, Virginia 1862

Barnard & Gibson created this photograph, Quaker Guns, Centreville, Virginia, around 1860. The sepia tones create a textured, almost dreamlike landscape, emphasizing the stark contrast between the rough, hastily constructed barriers in the foreground and the distant, orderly rows of buildings. The composition plays with deceptive appearances. Note the linear arrangement of logs that mimic cannons, a strategy of deception employed during the Civil War. The eye is led from these “guns” to the distant camp, questioning the authenticity of what we see. The landscape is divided into zones, each suggesting different levels of reality and artifice. This photograph challenges the documentary role of photography. It questions what is real versus what is staged, and how we interpret the signs of conflict. It leaves us to ponder on the layers of fabrication that war necessitates, captured through the careful arrangement of form and light.