Dead Chestnut Tree c. 1937

Alfred Stieglitz captured this stark image of a Dead Chestnut Tree with his camera, printing it as a photogravure. I can imagine him carefully choosing his vantage point, composing the shot to emphasize the contrast between the skeletal branches reaching skyward and the dense foliage below. I wonder what Stieglitz was thinking about as he framed this scene. Was he drawn to the drama of decay and rebirth, the cycle of life laid bare? The starkness reminds me of some of Marsden Hartley's landscapes, with their rugged simplicity. And like Georgia O'Keeffe, Stieglitz had a knack for finding the monumental in the everyday. Painters and photographers, we're all just trying to make sense of the world through our own lens, aren't we? Stieglitz’s image reminds us that art is always a conversation across time, and that even in death, there is a strange kind of beauty to be found.