Doylestown House--Stairwell 1917

This is a photograph by Charles Sheeler, Doylestown House--Stairwell. It’s hard to tell exactly when it was made, but it could be the 1910s. The darks and lights are incredible, aren’t they? The way the steps are illuminated from some unseen source. It’s so stark, so minimal! The texture of the wall beside the stairs is really brought out by the light, and you get a real sense of the surface. And the opposite wall, in shadow, is almost velvet black, there’s barely any detail there at all. It's a kind of silent geometry, a meditation on the simplest forms. The negative space is so loud in this photograph, that it almost feels like the most present thing in the picture. Sheeler made other pieces with a similar compositional framework, like Windows (1915), where we are again presented with a starkly minimal composition exploring light and shadow. Like a painter, he composes with tone and texture. It's a conversation with abstraction, made with photography.