civilized ku # 400 ~ less saltrimbancery for sure

Table with flowers and empty wine glass ~ Edwynn Houk Gallery - NY, NY • click to embiggenOn Monday's entry about the Pioneers of Color exhibit, "tom frost" (no link provided) asked ...

... Did you ever hear of Eugene Atget? or Walker Evans?

The question, which I must assume was laced with more than a dash of sarcasm considering that I have written extensively here on The Landscapist about both giants of the picturing making world, seems to be intended as a retort to my idea that the pioneers of color "challenged and redefined the notion of what was picture-worthy, subject / referent wise". "tom frost" went on to say that Atget and Evans work was "Not in color, obviously, but challenging and redefining the notion, most assuredly."

While I would not disagree entirely with mr. frost, I would suggest that he is playing a bit fast and loose with the facts. Consider this by John Szarkowski taken from the introduction to Walker Evans (MoMA catalog / exhibition, 1971):

... Without doubt, Evans' pictures have enlarged our sense of the usable Visual tradition, and have affected the way that we now see not only other photographs, but billboards, junkyards, postcards, gas stations, colloquial architecture, Main Streets, and the walls of rooms. Nevertheless Evans' work is rooted in the photography of the earlier past, and constitutes a reaffirmation of what had been photography's central sense of purpose and aesthetic: the precise and lucid description of significant fact ... there were hundreds of others who used photography in a similar spirit. (Atget himself differs from many other excellent photographers of his time because of the quality of his eye and mind, not because of the novelty of his conception.) The basic vocabulary and function of undiluted photography were universally visible for all to see, its exceptional use demanded only an exceptional artist.

That said, and even conceding that Evans and Atget may have ventured to some extent into new / untried ground, picture-worthiness / subject / referent wise, I have a great deal of difficulty equating that trip to the one undertaken by William Eggleston (most prominent, amongst others). To this day, the pictures in his book, Eggleston's Guide, are still regarded by some critics and many picture makers as "Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly." - art critic Hilton Kramer's respond to Szarkowski's assertion that Eggleston's picture were "perfect" - a criticism not often heard about Evans' "artless-art" approach to picture making.

IMO, and that of many others, it was Evans' practice and advocacy for more "lucid description", "undiluted photography", and, conversely, less saltimbancery in picture making that was the hallmark of his and Atget's work and that set them and their work up as very significant influences on future generations of picture makers.

Comments

[Matt]

So, where does Robert Adam's work fit into this discussion?