See Paris.
Xavier Barral| N° d'inventaire | 23254 |
| Format | 22 x 26.5 |
| Détails | 224 p., publisher's hardcover. |
| Publication | Paris, 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782365112819 |
Painters needed trees, objects, and street scenes for their compositions. Around 1897-1898, he began to photograph Paris systematically. The period was interested in the capital's heritage, and the Old Paris Commission commissioned several series from Atget, which he called Picturesque Paris, Art in Old Paris, and Surroundings. Equipped with an imposing apparatus comprising a bellows camera with a frame loaded with glass plates, the photographer captured the topography of a changing city. Small trades, stalls, courtyards, door knockers, carts, alleys, cafes, local ragpickers, urban gardens, half-abandoned parks, and the banks of the Seine—this obsessive research captured the details of the unexpected; it emanated a feeling of nostalgia and immediate proximity, but also a great poetry. Atget proceeded methodically, progressing through arrondissements and neighborhoods, as his notebooks testify. Preferring the light of early morning, the photographer produced thousands of images for libraries and museums. In 1906, the Historical Library of the City of Paris commissioned him to work on the topography of old Paris. His journey shows often deserted streets, impenetrable facades, windows open onto dark interiors: the world seems asleep, there are few inhabitants, who appear like ghosts behind their windows. The human absence dramatizes reality. Objects are also endowed with an unusual presence: shoes hanging in a window, baskets, whips, and reins suspended but without a coachman... Documents or works of art? Atget calls himself an author-editor: his absolute mastery of framing, his attention to the lines of buildings, unexpected details, and abandoned objects create a singular universe. For Atget, photography is reduced to itself, it has no affectation. In the 1920s, his interest in everyday objects removed from their function fascinated the Surrealists. A student of Man Ray, the American Berenice Abbott was the first to understand his work. After his death, she acquired more than a thousand plates, which she sold to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1968, promoting the dissemination of his images in the United States. With his frontal gaze, his vision that blends the imaginary and the real, Atget invented modern photography. This book presents approximately 170 images from the Carnavalet Museum collection and offers a dreamlike and aesthetic stroll, a pleasure for the eye that is underscored by the title of the exhibition at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation that accompanies this publication.
Painters needed trees, objects, and street scenes for their compositions. Around 1897-1898, he began to photograph Paris systematically. The period was interested in the capital's heritage, and the Old Paris Commission commissioned several series from Atget, which he called Picturesque Paris, Art in Old Paris, and Surroundings. Equipped with an imposing apparatus comprising a bellows camera with a frame loaded with glass plates, the photographer captured the topography of a changing city. Small trades, stalls, courtyards, door knockers, carts, alleys, cafes, local ragpickers, urban gardens, half-abandoned parks, and the banks of the Seine—this obsessive research captured the details of the unexpected; it emanated a feeling of nostalgia and immediate proximity, but also a great poetry. Atget proceeded methodically, progressing through arrondissements and neighborhoods, as his notebooks testify. Preferring the light of early morning, the photographer produced thousands of images for libraries and museums. In 1906, the Historical Library of the City of Paris commissioned him to work on the topography of old Paris. His journey shows often deserted streets, impenetrable facades, windows open onto dark interiors: the world seems asleep, there are few inhabitants, who appear like ghosts behind their windows. The human absence dramatizes reality. Objects are also endowed with an unusual presence: shoes hanging in a window, baskets, whips, and reins suspended but without a coachman... Documents or works of art? Atget calls himself an author-editor: his absolute mastery of framing, his attention to the lines of buildings, unexpected details, and abandoned objects create a singular universe. For Atget, photography is reduced to itself, it has no affectation. In the 1920s, his interest in everyday objects removed from their function fascinated the Surrealists. A student of Man Ray, the American Berenice Abbott was the first to understand his work. After his death, she acquired more than a thousand plates, which she sold to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1968, promoting the dissemination of his images in the United States. With his frontal gaze, his vision that blends the imaginary and the real, Atget invented modern photography. This book presents approximately 170 images from the Carnavalet Museum collection and offers a dreamlike and aesthetic stroll, a pleasure for the eye that is underscored by the title of the exhibition at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation that accompanies this publication.