Eugene Atget

I came across a program late the other night that was exploring the evolution of photography as an art movement. The part that I did briefly catch was a portion about surrealist photographer Eugene Atget. While I was familiar with some of his works, I never took much time to look at his collection in depth or to familiarize myself with the artist. I was really quite intrigued by his images and sought more. I discovered that he treated his photographs not as art, but as historical documentation. Atget scorned the idea of being classified as an artist, although he did sell his photographs to artists as a source of inspiration. He was more driven by his desire to capture the streets of Paris before the city became a completely modern center. The focus of the photographs is the everyday, a quest to find and capture the details of the city before they are gone. He finds the objects that you walk by and don’t notice. He captures images that are powerful and surreal. The empty streets of Paris are haunting. Store windows feel warped and bizarre. Opulence is oddly hollow. Objects appear stark and commanding in front of iconic backdrops of architectural beauty. This is truly a glimpse of Paris that was rarely seen in the days that the documents were made, and it will certainly never be seen in ours. You can explore a part of Eugene Atget’s collection at:

http://photography-now.net/eugene_atget/portfolio1.html

Meghan