Durability of Abstractness and Authenticity

More images here: http://www.tickld.com/x/29-incredible-colorized-historical-photos
Taruskin’s essay places an emphasis on the tension between what is timeless and what is a temporary personal experience in musical performances that look to the past. He cites modernist artists’ opinions that abstractness is durable, withstanding the test of time. Although the external force of nature is impermanent, constantly in flux, it is these abstract universal elements that are sustained over time. The website I’ve included shows a number of old photographs (many of them famous photos) that have been colorized. While this alters the original portrayal of each scene, the subjects remain constant. Although this changes the original choice by the photographer, it is an attempt to create a more “historically accurate” context for the photography. Some might argue that adding color to these images makes them more accessible to recent generations that associate black and white images with a static and distant past. I noticed that as I looked through these images, they changed the way I think about these past events. The color made them seem like the subjects occupy a time that was not nearly as distant as I had perceived them to be. When I look at some of these images, such as the photo of the archers in 1860 or the image of Nashville in 1864, it seems unreal that they could possibly be that old since they emulate a recent style of photography. This could potentially indicate a strong generational perception that black and white photography creates an expectation of antiquity, of a past that is distant and incapable of being completely translated into the present. This makes me wonder how this colorization of black and white photos modifies our expectations about history and the past and what this says about “authentic” versus “authentistic” translations of the past. In these colorized images what is preserved and what is lost?