Versailles, Vase 1905

Eugène Atget made this photograph of a vase in Versailles, using an unknown process. Look at the image with me. It’s soft and sepia-toned, kind of dreamy. I imagine Atget, lugging his heavy equipment around those formal gardens, looking for the right angle, waiting for the perfect light. Did he chat with the gardeners, I wonder? Did he feel like an outsider crashing a party? That vase, though! It’s enormous, ornate, covered in cherubs and foliage, like something out of a fairy tale. It's an interesting contrast - a very formal garden and a very informal scene depicted on the urn itself. I wonder if Atget was thinking about the way art imitates life, or life imitates art? The way we try to capture beauty and hold onto it? Photography, like painting, is all about capturing a moment, freezing it in time. And like painting, it's a conversation across generations, artists building on what came before, responding to each other's ideas.