Inferno

Inferno is also a masterpiece in strictly aesthetic terms. The power of Nachtwey's images transcends journalism. Bloody handprints on a living-room wall in Kosovo, the ghostly imprint of a Serb victim's vanished body on a floor, a Hutu with crazed eyes displaying the machete gashes he received for opposing the Tutsis' butchery, a howling orphan in a crib, one eye contracted in anger--these are compositions that depend, like Goya's, on the artist's skill as much as the subject's legitimate claim on our conscience.

Nachtwey's photographs make us capable of imagining that it could have happened to us. They are hard to forget, or forgive. --Tim Appelo

Product Description
Though he is probably the world's most honored recent war photographer, James Nachtwey calls himself an "antiwar photographer," as the preeminent critic Luc Sante notes in his excellent foreword to Inferno, a landmark collection of 382 war-crime photos. Nachtwey has taken shrapnel and had his hair literally parted by a bullet, but he's never lost his compassionate outrage. The stunning images in this huge-format book--brutally abused Romanian orphans, Rwandan genocide victims, a rat-hunter family of Indian Untouchables barbecuing dinner, skeletal dehydration victims in Sudan, the miserable in Bosnia, Chechnya, Zaire, Somalia, and Kosovo--are excruciating to look at, yet impossible to tear your eyes away from. Nachtwey's art is meant to force us to face unbearable facts. Faces are the key: you can't gaze into the eyes of a Romanian toddler tied to a bed, or wired to a primitive "electromagnetic therapy" device, and not grasp the horror more fully than you would by watching a TV news item or reading a newspaper piece. (The book's text explains each photo's context.)Inferno is also a masterpiece in strictly aesthetic terms. The power of Nachtwey's images transcends journalism. Bloody handprints on a living-room wall in Kosovo, the ghostly imprint of a Serb victim's vanished body on a floor, a Hutu with crazed eyes displaying the machete gashes he received for opposing the Tutsis' butchery, a howling orphan in a crib, one eye contracted in anger--these are compositions that depend, like Goya's, on the artist's skill as much as the subject's legitimate claim on our conscience. Nachtwey's photographs make us capable of imagining that it could have happened to us. They are hard to forget, or forgive. --Tim Appelo

Nachtwey allows his truthful images to speak for themselves,from the barren lands,the forsaken lands of the world that god has forgotten about.Somalia,Sudan,Rwanda,India,Bosnia,Chechyna,but it really doesn't matter where this occurs, the fact that it does right now, everyday. On artistic terms as others here have said these photos transcend the artistic frame, and given a forever deeper meaning to what art can express of the human spirit. These images also speak of the past, asking the pathetic question where have we come, or does anyone care.


The book everyone needs to see   March 16, 2000
The Rev. Leaf Seligman (Troy, NH United States)
24 out of 25 found this review helpful

These exquisitely beautiful and painful photographs bear witness to human suffering many of us otherwise might not see. Nachtwey has said it is his responsibility to record these images, and show the world. It is our responsibility as mindful beings to engage with them. This book will broaden your world and invite you to consider your connection to all who inhabit it. To view it is nothing short of a spiritual act.


Breathtaking   March 28, 2000
Robert Byrd (Minneapolis, MN United States)
21 out of 22 found this review helpful

There's little to say about this book other than it is a monumental masterpiece! Nachtwey's photographes literally jump from the pages of "Inferno" and into the soul of the reader. They speak to the horrors that human beings convey upon one another while, at the same time, they reveal the unimpeachable dedication of one man (Nachtwey) to ending such atrocities. This is a book that will out live us all. Hopefully, it will appear in college courses 100 years from now as a testament to humanity's past, not its present condition. This book is highly recommended!


Great photo-journalism   March 31, 2000
P. Craven (Indianola, IA USA)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful

Every rare once in a while you see or read something so powerful that you feel not just emotionally touched, but physically as well.

This book left me feeling like someone hit me in the chest.