Versailles, Vase 1906 - 1907

Eugène Atget captured this view of a vase in Versailles with a camera, no date given. I always think of photography as a kind of sculpture, a way of carving light and time. In this print, the surface has this dreamy, almost ghostly quality. Look at the way Atget plays with light and shadow to bring out the texture of the vase. You can almost feel the coolness of the stone, and the delicate carving of the lilies. The way the light falls on that central leaf, it’s like a stage spotlight, pulling you into the drama of the composition. Atget reminds me of Bernd and Hilla Becher, those German photographers who obsessively cataloged industrial structures. Both artists share this desire to document, to freeze a moment in time. But where the Bechers are all about cool, detached observation, Atget brings a little more poetry, a little more soul.