Poterne des Peupliers 1913

Eugène Atget made this albumen print, *Poterne des Peupliers*, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. It’s like looking at a memory, filtered through sepia tones and soft focus. What strikes me is the texture, or the anticipation of it. The eye wants to reach out and touch the crumbling brickwork of the small building, the overgrown foliage, and the rough-hewn planks of the ramshackle structure perched precariously on the hillside. It feels as though Atget wasn’t so concerned with capturing a pristine image, but rather with preserving a feeling, or a fleeting moment in time. That leaning post holding up the ramshackle building is really doing it for me; it's like a metaphor for the whole scene. It's about the beauty found in the impermanent. It's a nod to Walker Evans's stark documentation of American vernacular architecture, but Atget brings his own romantic sensibility to the genre. Both artists remind us that art is in the everyday, if you just take the time to look.