Why illustrate a book of chronicles, memories or connections with photos of its interior, its home? An author who photographed the main rooms of his house because he spend disseminating the message or offer does what only satisfy the curiosity of his readers? How he selects or does it directed their privacy (or what he wants to impersonate her intimacy, or better what he finds is not intimacy but only a theater of self-representation)? These issues could come to my mind several times, for example by checking the images shared on Facebook, but finally I am asked by browsing the books by Mildred Aldrich (1853-1928), the American that I have mentioned in a previous post who had settled in 1914 in Quincy-Voisins, a village eight kilometers south of Meaux (Seine-et-Marne). She publishes in the First World War more books forming, from his correspondence, a chronic life in the war zone that is so near Meaux. It embodies several books featuring his photographs daily and that of the village. And it offers the same opportunity to drive two images of the inside of his house, one published in his first book (A hilltop Of The Marne , 1915), covering the period between June and September 1914, and other in the second volume ( On the Edge of the War Zone , 1917) covering the period between September 1914 and April 1917.
If one correlates the contents of text and images presented, we quickly understand that it is she who takes to the stage through these pictures of empty characters.
The first photo (above) shows us inside a country house located so bourgeois. One can distinguish characters in both "primitive" (exposed beams, tiled floor, wooden staircase, walls ...) and more "urban" (many frames, upholstered armchairs, furniture ...). Overall, the aspect of "cottage" sticks fairly well with the exterior view given by the author:
This corresponds perfectly with his story that bears little on the war but that leaves plenty of room at its facility in the country, far from Paris and the city. It presents itself as wanting to return to earth (it is of peasant origin) and says they do not want to hear from city life. Also published a photo of interior in the first book she gives a picture of a woman of a certain comfort returning to village life (albeit with means well above the peasants around him).
interior photography published in the second book presents a different face of the little cottage by Mildred Aldrich. This is his library, in the center, his desk. This is also probably the only library in the hamlet where it occurs, but probably not the county (one thinks of the rectory or to the castle but also to the notary or other small community leaders). The idealized country life in the first volume does not appear in this picture. The reason is simple: his first book, A Hilltop Of The Marne is a true bestseller in the United States. In 1916, he is already in the tenth edition. Until then the corresponding American newspapers and theater critic, she is now a woman of letters. And this library is there to testify. She is also a personality in the village, receiving for tea the officers of the regiments at rest in the town, invited by them to the theater donated by actor-soldiers, opening his library to the military happy to read a little until their departure for the front.
Between two photos inside (where it does not appear), so it changes its own representation: first bourgeois withdrawn the campaign, she becomes a woman of letters whose rank is symbolized by its library housed in a room in his small house Brie. The choice of interior images released thus far from innocent and it corresponds to the idea that we want to give of oneself.
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