johnncox's photostream  

An amateur photographer with one year's experience re-lived 56 times.

I once had a history teacher who, as a course requirement, required us to read so many pages of history that was relevant to the course content. What we read was irrelevant as long as it concerned the topic of our study. But he allowed one page of material that was written during the period of history we were studying to be counted as equal to ten pages of material that was written by later commentators on that period. It wasn't that he thought the contemporaneous writing was unbiased or without an agenda, but that the bias and agenda of contemporaneous writing was more apparent and thus easier to filter out. He was of the opinion that modern day historians were much more sophisticated and guileful in concealing their biases and agendas under the veneer of objectivity than were their predecessors.

Somewhat based on the same philosophy, I view grave markers as being reflections of the design ascetics and sensibilities of the period in which the deceased lived. Whether it be a Neo-Classical revival, folk art, Victorian era public sculpture, the Arts and Crafts movement, the Egyptian craze, the International Style, or the current minimalist design preference, they are all reflected in our cemeteries. While I do find the currenrt preference for small, flat, flush with ground markers to be boring, they are, none the less, reflective of a minimalist design critera that is so popular today. I realize that grave markers are not a perfect reflection of the history of popular design criteria, but I think they are a far more complete record of the history of popular design criteria than they are given credit for. And to a far lesser extent than buildings, grave markers are not routinely replaced by newer more contemporary markers. And the grave markers that are preserved are more of a random selection of past grave markers rather than being preserved because today's historians deem them worthy of preservation. Preservation of grave markers is more of the luck of the draw as to the cemetery in which they were placed and the materials from which they were made than any post-hoc judgment as to their worthiness as a representative of their period.