A Look Inside

Certain Native American tribes believe the camera steals your soul. Well, you can understand why. I've looked  into the eyes of people photographed a hundred years ago and gotten lost in them. They no longer walk the earth, but their image remains, and I can't help but wonder where they were in their lives when the shutter snapped. I've been intrigued not only by my own relatives but by people in books and in museums.

Photo of the Smithsonian painting of General Giles

Painted portraits have the same effect on me. There was one in the National Portrait Gallery that I still remember from many years ago. It was of a gentleman called General James Giles, painted by Joseph Wright. At the time I discovered the painting, there was no easy way to learn more about my General Giles  -- the internet was not yet public. I asked the museum if they had any information -- they did not. So it was only until very recently that I learned he was a commissioned member of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War and that he served under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette. He was born circa 1759 and died in 1823.

What was it that made him so memorable to me? There was something of his soul there, deep in his eyes. What I think is very cool is that here I sit, wondering about someone who died 191 years ago. He lived in extraordinary times, yet he is remembered not because he did anything that landed him in the history books, but because someone painted his picture.

It's human nature to want to be remembered and thought about by future generations. To leave some sort of footprint in this world, so that others may wonder what we were like, what were our loves, our aversions, our losses.

 In the years to come, how, or even will, I be remembered at all? Kind of puts things into perspective, it does.

P.S. One interesting side note:  General Giles died on July 23rd -- my birthday.

Today, the Smithsonian, thanks to a dogged, researcher (identified only as "Laura"), has a mini biography posted of General Giles. Many thanks to the individual who illuminated the man's life for me after many years of wondering.