Eugene Atget Appreciation

[DREW WILEY]

The French, especially the Impressionists, drank absinthe. The Irish almost always seem to be drunken. Both have slurred speech under such circumstances. No wonder so much art pontification is unintelligible, or even downright senseless. No all of it, by any means, but enough to make one think twice about reading anymore of it before consulting one's own pair of eyes first.

 

[Arthurwg]

Well, a canoe and a oil tanker are both boats, but they are not the same subject unless you are talking about the genre "boat." I don't think either of these photos are illustrating that. Each is very specific, not generic at all.

As far as innovation, I think Atget's was the "sensibility," or emotion brought to the picture. They are soulful, if you will. In comparison, Charles Marville's "documents" are just that, adequate but soulless.

 

[cliveh]

The French, especially the Impressionists, drank absinthe. The Irish almost always seem to be drunken. Both have slurred speech under such circumstances. No wonder so much art pontification is unintelligible, or even downright senseless. No all of it, by any means, but enough to make one think twice about reading anymore of it before consulting one's own pair of eyes first.

Not all French and Irish people are drunks.

 

[Don_ih]

Not the same subject.

I think I have some idea what you may mean,

I'd say Atget's boat is at peace with nature, exists within it, and the photo presents a tranquil scene - innocent, if you want to think that way.

The other photo shows a boat that is being consumed buy nature, in what looks like a swamp of decay. No tranquility other than slow decay after death.

Atget's composition feels almost like a two-dimensional representation, with the boat perfectly parallel and the trees framing it like a fairytale scene or a carefully staged, timeless set. Bresson, on the other hand, plays with volume, texture, tight framing, and depth of field to create a sense of tension.

A lot of that is a mostly direct result of format and material choice. But both knew how their photos would look when they clicked the shutter. (Or, in Atget's case, maybe took his hat off the lens...)

 

[snusmumriken]

I'd say Atget's boat is at peace with nature, exists within it, and the photo presents a tranquil scene - innocent, if you want to think that way.

The other photo shows a boat that is being consumed buy nature, in what looks like a swamp of decay. No tranquility other than slow decay after death.

In that respect, it's almost as though Atget and HCB had swapped personalities for these photos. Atget shows us an ugly contemporary tub, fit for use. HCB shows a decaying beauty from a passing culture.

 

[Arthurwg]

In that respect, it's almost as though Atget and HCB had swapped personalities for these photos. Atget shows us an ugly contemporary tub, fit for use. HCB shows a decaying beauty from a passing culture.

Err.. Come again? What's ugly about Atget's boat? What's beautiful about HCB's disaster?

 

[DREW WILEY]

No similarity other than both having a horizontally situated boat in an interesting scene. Atget's version is head and shoulders above the other - a very elegant airy composition where everything fits into place with meticulous edge to edge tension; the other is a bit cluttered.

 

[snusmumriken]

Err.. Come again? What's ugly about Atget's boat? What's beautiful about HCB's disaster?

In short, Atget's boat lacks curves. Even in its broken state, HCB's boat is still recognisably a finer construction and a thing of grace.

I can recommend this:

...but it is 650 pages long.

I suppose if you have no boating experience, it may be difficult to understand that curves give a boat life as well as beauty.

 

[koraks]

Sooner or later it's bound to happen that some will be discussing boats, while others are discussing photographs of boats!

 

[loccdor]

Not all French and Irish people are drunks.

True, not only, there's also an ample supply of cheese to consume.

Everybody's drunk on something.

 

[Don_ih]

Sooner or later it's bound to happen that some will be discussing boats, while others are discussing photographs of boats!

The real issue is when no one can figure out which is which.

 

[nikos79]

I’ll dare to say that, although I’m more drawn to Bresson’s photograph, I consider it more "predictable." It’s something that any of us would frame that way at that given moment. On the other hand, Atget’s composition is more original and unusual.

 

[snusmumriken]

Sooner or later it's bound to happen that some will be discussing boats, while others are discussing photographs of boats!

Well, he did ask.

 

[DREW WILEY]

snus - I equipped the folks who built the biggest most expensive wooden as well as CF yachts in the world, including racing ones if you're concerned about shape. I'm sure there are thousands of pictures of those. I prefer Atget's boat.

 

[snusmumriken]

snus - I equipped the folks who built the biggest most expensive wooden as well as CF yachts in the world, including racing ones if you're concerned about shape. I'm sure there are thousands of pictures of those. I prefer Atget's boat.

I don’t actually want to discuss boats here. You are entirely missing the point of what I wrote in #480. But it doesn’t matter, move on.

 

[Don_ih]

Atget shows us an ugly contemporary tub, fit for use. HCB shows a decaying beauty from a passing culture.

I had to go look more closely at the boats (not being familiar with boats but being very familiar with how things are built) to see it, but I get what you're saying. If you could buy a boat at Ikea, it would be like Atget's boat. There's nothing special about the boat itself in Atget's print, in spite of how nice the print is. Cartier-Bresson's boat, though, has indications of highly skilled work - but it's all rotting away and being swallowed by the swamp.

Atget’s composition is more original and unusual

The adopted perspectives are almost identical, but the scenes are too disparate to really compare these. It's hard to call either "original and unusual" when they're both about as straightforward point-and-shoot photos as you can get. Cartier-Bresson's photo looks underexposed, though, which makes the foreground look odd. Atget's photo is really well exposed, so ends up with a more nuanced light.

 

[snusmumriken]

I had to go look more closely at the boats (not being familiar with boats but being very familiar with how things are built) to see it, but I get what you're saying. If you could buy a boat at Ikea, it would be like Atget's boat. There's nothing special about the boat itself in Atget's print, in spite of how nice the print is. Cartier-Bresson's boat, though, has indications of highly skilled work - but it's all rotting away and being swallowed by the swamp.

Phew! Thank you for getting my point (and explaining it better than I had).

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Atget's trees. I suspect they may say more about Atget than the prostitutes do.

 

[Don_ih]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Atget's trees.

The trees were mentioned by someone a while ago, but it was in the middle of discussing something else.

 

[snusmumriken]

Ah yes, in #283. That was about composition. I’m thinking that the existence of dozens or scores of Atget tree photos says something about his motivations.

 

[Don_ih]

I’m thinking that the existence of dozens or scores of Atget tree photos says something about his motivations.

He may have simply liked taking photos of trees. I do. Lots of people do. Other motives, though, when you're in a time of heavy industrialization, could be the destruction of trees - since he did have an interest in recording what was before it was gone. Also, though, lots of people like sketching trees or painting trees, so that may have been useful for his artist market.

I think he probably liked the way trees look in photos, more than anything else.

Now if only we could consult someone about the connection between trees and prostitutes....

 

[DREW WILEY]

If Atget's boat had come from Ikea, it would have sunken long before he got a chance to photograph it, with all the paper-thin veneer soaked off, and the cheap particle board core dissolved into damp sawdust down in the muck. Thank goodness, there were no Ikea stores back then.

Atget was a master in how he used trees to complement his compositions. The Post 283 example is indeed unusual. But I "got it" long ago. It is his own intuitive venture into Constructivism, for lack of a better term. Carleton Watkins and Sheeler were the photographic masters of that (only certain Watkins ULF prints clearly exhibit it, taken well before there was a school of painters doing it; Sheeler both photographed and painted). It's a daring division of space right in front of the rest of the picture, so can be intimidating in that respect; a bold experiment, at least, but certainly not the manner Atget typically handled trees.

Watkins' examples were truly prescient of modern art; but this one example of the same kind of compositional strategy with Atget might or might not have been inspired by what contemporary painters were already doing. More recently, Friedlander attempted those kinds of arboreal overlays, but in a half-baked way in my opinion - just too conspicuously forced and artsty.

It's surprisingly difficult to compose well in that manner. I was out yesterday with the 4x5 and a long lens working with a very intricate tree overlaid upon another kind of tree, but that was all at a distance and essentially two-dimensional, and in color as well - whole different ballgame.

 

[snusmumriken]

Also, though, lots of people like sketching trees or painting trees, so that may have been useful for his artist market.

FWIW, my guess is that they were purely copy for the artists. It's not that easy to think how a particular kind of tree 'goes' when you're in a studio, e.g. what makes the difference between an ash and an oak. If you do a web search, most of Atget's trees are in winter plumage, i.e. they are illustrating the underlying structure. Many or most of Atget's trees are 'interesting' specimens: gnarly, twisted, or ivy clad. And they are mostly plum centre (excuse tree pun) of the frame.

I've no doubt Atget liked trees - who doesn't? - but I can't think why he would have accumulated so many photos of this type unless he felt there was a market for them. It would be fascinating if anyone ever spotted one of Atget's trees in a painting of that era.

 

[DREW WILEY]

If Atget were strictly in it for the money, he probably would have never made many of those pictures to begin with. He invested a lot of his personal psyche and life experiences in them. Keep in mind that most of the famous eloquent examples were taken late in his life, when retrospection would factor more than monetary ambition. Those are the kind of pictures which now define him. But all along, he seems to have taken certain pictures for purely personal reasons, just like all great photographers do who still have to make a living with a camera besides.

Atget did do some Impressionistic style paintings with trees in them; he wasn't very good at it.

 

[Don_ih]

Well, frankly, it's hard to beat an interesting tree as a photographic subject. It's probably only behind women and mountains. (actually, it's probably ahead of mountains and cars but now behind lunch...)

 

[Arthurwg]

In short, Atget's boat lacks curves. Even in its broken state, HCB's boat is still recognisably a finer construction and a thing of grace.

I can recommend this:
View attachment 394295
...but it is 650 pages long.

I suppose if you have no boating experience, it may be difficult to understand that curves give a boat life as well as beauty.

I've owned five boats and sailed extensively. And you?