The Night Tiger

by Yangsze Choo

The worst part about death is forgetting the image of the beloved. It’s the final robbery, the last betrayal.

Before the advent of photography, I think this was very true. People had no way to exactly recollect the faces, unless you had an unusually good visual memory. In fact, I suspect that nowadays most people’s visual memories are actually of photographs; that is to say, you remember X because you can bring up in your mind the photo of X that always hung in the hallway (or you took on your phone!). In the absence of photographs, portraits were treasured. The walls of museums are lined with paintings of people who wished to be remembered. Even poor people tried to preserve their memories through charcoal sketches, or by employing itinerant artists to make a likeness. If you think about it, the word “likeness” implies a substitute. It must have been terribly sad to realise that you had nothing left, not even a very clear image of what a person looked like.