A quick glance at this photograph leaves the viewer with a startling impression. Set amidst interwoven clouds of black and white, a seemingly grotesque and twisted body emerges. The strange form possesses a surface like wrinkled skin, complete with intricate lines that branch out like capillaries and modeled curves that resemble the delicate shape of some small organ. While some viewers may immediately assume that this is the body of an animal, it is in fact the remains of a bottle—melted and utterly transformed by the blast of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945, the last year of World War II.

The complexity of this work comes in part from the artist’s ability to disassociate his subject from its context. The bottle’s likeness to a living form is not forced but encouraged. The careful lighting of the photograph helps to focus the viewer’s attention to the texture and contours of the bottle. It also allows the bottle to appear fleshy and gleam as if wet. Additionally, the top of the photograph is cropped just shy of the bottle’s mouth—a compositional choice which leaves the form incomplete and emphasizes the ambiguity of the bottle and the moral dilemma surrounding the dropping of the bomb.

The space behind the bottle is almost equally as vague. The background’s white forms lack the three-dimensional volume of the bottle but are not entirely flat either. Rough lines and collections of specks appear around the bottom of the photograph like cracks and scratches of damage on a mirror. Within the mist, there are only glimmers of shapes—perhaps the flash of an eye to the left of the bottle, the texture of fur to the right. The bottle seems to be situated within a space of fluctuating time. Although the glass is from the present, the blended organic forms hang like clouds, embodying memories of the lives taken by the bomb. It is an image of surreal, nearly apocalyptic destruction.

Although the shape of this bottle is still recognizable, many objects and structures that were within the range of the bomb’s blast were instantly reduced to rubble. Even more buildings, items, and bodies were severely damaged by the subsequent fire of the blast which spread across what remained of the city. Thousands were killed in the events of that day, and thousands more died in the following years from their physical injuries and radiation poisoning—bringing the death toll in Nagasaki to about 74,000. Like many other natives, Japanese photographer Tômatsu Shômei had long chosen not to confront this horrifying event, neither personally nor in his work. Tômatsu first picked up a camera in 1950 as a university economics student, but it was not until the 1960s that the artist began to focus his work on the effects of the atomic bomb and the American occupation of his homeland. Recognized as one of the premier photographers of post-war Japan, Tômatsu was influenced by Surrealism and the Western documentary tradition. He was also interested in the French New Wave film movement and was a member of the photography cooperative VIVO. His photographs bear witness to a period of rebuilding as well as the unsettling realities of Japan’s lingering physical and psychological trauma.