What is the main content of Wangyuan Mountain?

Wangyuan Mountain

Jonathan Schell

1 On August 9, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. That day, photographer Yamahata Yusuke, who was serving in the Japanese army, was dispatched to this destroyed city.

The hundreds of photos he took the next day are the most complete existing image records of the power of nuclear destruction. Hiroshima, which had also suffered destruction three days before, was basically not captured by cameras on the first day of the bombing.

Yamahata happened to be able to methodically document, with great artistry and simplicity, the effects of a nuclear weapon on humanity just hours after its detonation. Some of Yamahata's photos show bodies charred in their own unique way by the nuclear fireball.

They were scorched by light - in technical terms, they were scorched by a "heat pulse" - and the bodies were often branded with patterns of clothing, as different colors absorbed light to a greater extent. different.

One photo captures a twisted horse huddled under the cart it was pulling. Another shows a pile of objects hanging from a protrusion into a ditch, which also appear to be the remains of a human being. In the third photo, there is a little girl standing at the entrance of the air raid shelter. Somehow, she survived the disaster unscathed. A weird smile appeared on her face, which was shocking.

If it weren’t for this photo, in the scene we are witnessing now, the original daily life would be gone forever. The vast expanse of ruins and rubble stretches into the distance, with residual fire scattered among them, and the background of this scene is the rolling mountains.

We can see the distant mountains because the entire city has been reduced to scorched earth. The ashes of the city illustrate the core nature of the problem better than the ruins of the city. The real effect of this event is not what is left of the city but what is gone.

2 It only took a few seconds for the United States to use the world's second atomic bomb to level Nagasaki. However, it took 50 years for Yamahata to take the photos of this incident from Nagasaki to the United States. for a long time.

The first time the photos were exhibited in the United States was in 1995, at the International Center of Photography in New York. Half a century later, these photos still carry news power.

These photos show the fate of a single city, but they have universal significance, because in our age of nuclear weapons, the disaster that happened to Nagasaki could happen to any city in the world in the blink of an eye. On the body.

Through these photos, Nagasaki vindicated his name. It has always existed in the shadow of Hiroshima, because it seems that the human imagination stopped and disappeared after reaching the ruins of Hiroshima, the first city to be destroyed, so that it could not even reach the edge of Nagasaki.

However, the destruction of Nagasaki is in some ways a more potent symbol of the nuclear threat hanging over our heads. It proves that once humans start killing people with nuclear weapons, they will repeat the same mistakes.

It brings with it the concept of serial destruction, that is, with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons persisting, every one of us is potentially at risk. (The second atomic bomb was originally planned to be dropped on Kokura. Only bad weather and poor aerial visibility prevented Kokura from the fate of Nagasaki. This illustrates the elusive and unpredictable nature of serial nuclear weapons threats. . )

So rather than seeming to record a scene that happened half a century ago, each photo is a window embedded in the wall of the photography center through which one can see. Maybe things will be easy to do in New York soon.

And no matter where these exhibits end up, these "windows" of threatened futures are generally accurate, for while each intact city is very different from the others, any city that suffers nuclear annihilation The appearance of the cities hit will be almost the same.

3 Yamahata’s photos offer a glimpse into the end of the world. However, in this era, our challenge is not only to recognize the existence of nuclear threats, but also to seize this God-given opportunity to eliminate them completely.

So, in addition to these photos, we need other photos to counteract the negative feelings of devastated Nagasaki; we need photos that show not what we will lose by failing, but what we will lose through failure. Success is something we can gain.

But what kind of photo should this be? How do you show the opposite side of the apocalypse? Is it a photo of Nagasaki intact and vibrant before the bomb was dropped? Or was it Ogura who escaped? Or a child, a mother and her child, or the earth itself? None of them adequately served their purpose.

The reason is how can we use a limited form to show the infinite vitality of all human beings now and in the future? When it comes to the end of the world or the future of the world, imagination is really powerless. Only action can satisfy.

4 In the past, the arrival of new generations into the world was a natural thing. Now, they can only come through the faith-filled actions and collective will of today, and we must protect their right to exist. The greatest responsibility of man today is to take such action. The gift of time is always the gift of life, provided we know how to accept such a gift.

Original text

A View of Mountains

Jonathan Schell

1.On August 9, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Yosuke Yamahata, aphotographer serving in the Japanese army, was dispatched to the destroyed city. The hundred or so pictures he took the next day constitute the fullest photographic record of nuclear destruction inexistence. Hiroshima, destroyed three days earlier, had largely escaped the camera's lens in the first day after the bombing. It was therefore left to Yamahata to record, methodically -and, as ithappens, with a great and simple artistry - the effects on a human population of a nuclear weapon only hours after it had been used. Some of Yamahata's pictures show corpses charred in the peculiar way in which a nuclear fireball chars its victims. They have been burned by light – technically speaking, by the “thermal pulse” – and their bodies are often branded with the patterns of their clothes, whose colors absorb light in different degrees. One photograph shows a horse twisted under the cart it had been pulling. Another shows a heap of something that once had been a human being hanging over a ledge into a ditch. A third shows a girl who has somehow survived unwoundedstanding in the open mouth of a bomb shelter and smiling an unearthly smile, shocking us with the sight of ordinary life, which otherwise seems to have been left behind for good in the scenes we are witnessing. Stretching into the distance on all sides are fields of rubble dotted with fires, and, in the background, a view of mountains. We can see the mountains because the city is gone. That absence, even more than wreckage, contains the heart of the matter. The true measure of the event lies not in what remains but in all that has disappeared.

2.It took a few seconds for the United States to destroy Nagasaki with the wo rld's second atomicbomb, but it took fifty years for Yamahata's pictures of the event to make the journey back from Nagasaki to the United States. They were shown for the first time in this country in 1995, at the International Center for Photography in New York. Arriving a half-century late, they are still news.The photographs display the fate of a single city, but their meaning is universal, since, in our age of nuclear arms, what happened to Nagasaki can, in a flash, happen to any city in the world. In thephotographs, Nagasaki comes into its own. Nagasaki has always been in the shadow of Hiroshima, as if the human imagination had stumbled to exhaustion in the wreckage of the first ruined city without reaching even the outskirts of the second. Yet the bombing of Nagasaki is in certain respects the fitter symbol of the nuclear danger that still hangs over us. It is proof that, having once used nuclearweapons, we can use them again. It introduces the idea of ??a series -the series that, with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons remaining in existence, continues to threaten everyone (The unpredictable, open-ended character of the series is suggested by the fact that the second bomb originally was to be dropped on the city of Kokura, which was spared Nagasak i's fate only because bad weather protected it from view.) Each picture therefore seemed not so much an image of something that happened a half-century ago as a window cut into the wall of the photography center showing what soon could easily happen to New York. Wherever the exhibit might travel, moreover, the view of threatened future from these “windows” would be roughly accurate, since, although every intact city is different from every other, all cities that suffer nuclear destruction will look much the same.

3.Yamahata's pictures afford a glimpse of the end of the world. Yet in our day, when the challenge is not just to apprehend the nuclear peril but to seize a God-given opportunity to dispel it once and for all, we seem to need, in addition, some other picture to counterpoise against ruined Nagasaki -one showing not what we would lose through our failure but what we would gain by our success. What might that picture be, though? How do you show the opposite of the end of the world? Should it be Nagasaki, intact and alive, before the bomb was dropped -or perhaps the spared city of Kokura? Should it be a child, or a mother and child, or perhaps the Earth itself? None seems adequate, for how can we give a definite form to that which can assume infinite forms, namely, the lives of all human beings, now and in the future? Imagination, faced with either the end of the world or its continuation, must remain incomplete. Only action can satisfy.

4.Once, the arrival in the world of new generations took care of itself. Now, they can come into existence only if, through an act of faith and collective will, we ensure their right to exist. Performing that act is the greatest of the responsibilities of the generations now alive. The gift of time is the gift of life, forever, if we know how to receive it.