- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Messages
- 25
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- Large Format Pan
blansky said:These lines always bothered me. They know nothing about the guy but some "intellectual" conjured up an "inferrence" from his work and creates a biography, or at least a motivation for his work.
I've always found those a little suspect.
Michael
Artur Zeidler said:This is the last photograph in Szarkowski's book on Atget. He essentially sees it as the apogee of all Atget's work. In his "meditation" on this picture he says in part:
"One might think of Atget's work at Sceaux as a recapitulation in miniature of all his work on the culture of old France, a record of the deminishing souvenirs of a foreign country.
Or, one might think of it as a summation and the consumate acheivment of his work as a photographer - a coherent, uncompromising statement of what he had learned of his craft, and how he had amplified and elaborated the sensibility with which he had begun.
Or perhaps we might see the work at Sceaux as a portrait of Atget himself, not excluding petty flaws, but showing most clearly the boldness and certainty of his taste, his method, his vision. (He felt he had a kiship with trees) At sixty eight, at seven o'clock on a gray March morning, he may have felt a special kinship with this particualr pine - a tree scarred by life and slighted by time, eccentric but still vital and compelling - which should be photographed perfectly, in a way that would match, or echo, its own unrepeatable beauty..."
Artur Zeidler said:There is also this from the first part of the intro essay in the first of the four volume MoMA set of books on Atget - I feel it describes perfectly Atget's photography
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/7101/szark1.html
bertram said:BTW is Szarkowsky a photog himself ?
bertram
Artur Zeidler said:I don't think a knee-jerk phobic response to thinking hard and seriously about something is really a valid ground for dismissing a complete body of detailed work?
df cardwell the bisection of the image by the tree in the center of the frame violate the tasteful rules of the salon artists who would define what was good said:This is a bit confusing: Though you obviously do not see much worth in any rules, no matter if those of the old salon are meant or those of the neo aristocracy, you believe to see Atget using a classical composing device here, the Golden Spiral ? As for me, neither approximately nor correctly I can see the Golden Spiral here, the squares are simply not set right for it.
As for the "rules" , IMHO there are rules and laws. Rules may change with the times, they always relate to a historical esthetics (salon). Laws do not change, they refer to our human perception as the Golden Cut does for example.
Leaving the "rules" aside, related to the "laws" I too find this photo a mess, as it was said. From other reasons too, but those don't play a role here. It's like a needle in my eye.
That is surprising, because Atget was an educated painter who really knew that all and who made photos for painters who made painting from such photos.. Terrible to see that some burrow through his work now and publish whatever they find interesting, and he cannot stop them. As so very often, also in this case I have serious doubts that he would want to see this neg published. Maybe we should burn all doubtful negs before we die ?
Regards
bertram
mark said:Just what was knee-jerk about Blansky's response. I thought it got right to the heart of the matter.
rfshootist said:That is surprising, because Atget was an educated painter who really knew that all and who made photos for painters who made painting from such photos.. Terrible to see that some burrow through his work now and publish whatever they find interesting, and he cannot stop them. As so very often, also in this case I have serious doubts that he would want to see this neg published. Maybe we should burn all doubtful negs before we die ?
Regards
bertram
tim atherton said:WOW - I'm bowled over... what a suprise
roteague said:Sorry that it bothers you so much to have someone disagree with you. At least I am open about it, and not sending anonymous postings to your website, trashing your work.
roteague said:Originally Posted by tim atherton
WOW - I'm bowled over... what a suprise
Sorry that it bothers you so much to have someone disagree with you. At least I am open about it, and not sending anonymous postings to your website, trashing your work.
Claire Senft said:What the hell. Blansky and I are in agreement? Well, I guess its true. I do not like the photo either. Whether it is good enought to be called as mess I leave to you. Perhaps Blansky was being overly kind.
rfshootist said:I read it, not good for my blood pressure.
Quote
Little is known about is life, and less about his intentions, except as they can be inferred from his work.
Quote end.
How true ! And this should be obligion enuff for people like Szarkowsky to leave him alone with interpretations and assumptions and insinuations. If there is anything which still can make me really wild then it is the intellectual blahblah of those who make their living with enlightening us about other peoples photos.
Atget was a simple man doing a simple thing, obviously too simple for many to leave him just beeing what he really was.
So my answer to Szarkowsky would be: "Leave me alone , Szarkowsky, I don't need your genius. I got the photos !"
BTW is Szarkowsky a photog himself ?
bertram
tim atherton said:"When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun"
Artur Zeidler said:It is also obvious that he played with (and also deliberately broke) many of the painterly rules of composition in his photographs (which was apparently one of the reasons he was "adopted" in his old age by the Surrealists).
rfshootist said:That he was "adopted" by the surrealists is new for me, what I know is that some of them bought his photos to support him, mainly Man Ray, who lived door to door with him in the Rue Campagne Premier. No clue what could be the bridge from his work to surrealism, there is not any bigger contradiction imaginable for me in form and intention.
That he made experiments in the 20s, well I personally never heard of it but is more likely than not. If so , Berenice Abbott could be the only reliable source for that, did she report such experiments ?
Anyway, whatever the intentions were which let him take this photo,
at least esthetically for me it is completely off rail. The longer I watch it the more it looks a bit surrealistic, maybe you are right.
bertram
tim atherton said:In interviews later in his life Many Ray spoke of discovering Atget as a "naive" surrealist and the work of the old man Atget being an influence on Ray and his group at that time (and on Minor White's comments on Atget's technique - or rather lack thereof - Ray's response was that Atget was an artist not a perfectionist...)
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