Untitled (man standing by car) c. 1945

This photograph, by Robert Burian, at the Harvard Art Museums, gives us a man standing by a car. I’m really drawn to how the image is inverted, like a photographic negative, playing with dark and light in unexpected ways. Look at how the details emerge – the car's chrome, the man's hat, the houses in the background – all rendered in ghostly light. This feels like a process of revelation, of bringing something hidden into view. The texture of the photograph itself is smooth, almost clinical, but the subject matter feels intimate. The shadow across the bottom of the frame, the light in the sky. It’s a slice of life, caught and transformed. I’m reminded of the work of artists like Gerhard Richter, who also played with photography and painting, blurring the lines between representation and abstraction. Ultimately, this photograph is not just about what it depicts, but about how we see, and how meaning can shift with a simple change in perspective.