Lake George by Alfred Stieglitz

Artwork details

Medium
photography, gelatin-silver-print
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 19.3 x 24 cm (7 5/8 x 9 7/16 in.) mount: 56.3 x 46.2 cm (22 3/16 x 18 3/16 in.)
Copyright
National Gallery of Art: CC0 1.0

Tags

#black and white photography#pictorialism#landscape#photography#black and white#gelatin-silver-print#monochrome photography#monochrome#modernism#monochrome

About this artwork

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Lake George, using gelatin silver. It’s all about atmosphere, right? The kind of light that wraps around you. Look at the horizon line. It’s barely there, almost swallowed by the sky. The clouds are the main event here, thick and churning, with a band of light slicing through. It’s moody, dramatic, and totally captivating. You can almost feel the humidity, smell the rain coming. It makes you think about the weather, and how it affects everything. Stieglitz was a master of capturing these fleeting moments, turning the ordinary into something extraordinary. Think about Gerhard Richter’s cloud paintings or even Vija Celmins’ night skies – there’s a similar obsession with capturing light and atmosphere. Ultimately this piece reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas and ways of seeing. It doesn't matter if they are definitive, it matters if they open up the space around us.

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