Spain 1952

Robert Frank made this photograph, "Spain," using gelatin silver. There's a moment of stark stillness here, captured in monochrome. The texture of the bull's fur, the rough wood of the barrier, even the smooth fabric of the matador's suit—it all speaks to a world of tactile sensation, a process frozen in time. Look at the bull's horn, how it curves, bearing the mark of the fight. It is all captured with a stark clarity, it's a kind of brutal beauty. This one detail, this singular element, contains the whole story. Frank was always chasing after something raw and unvarnished, something real. You see that in the work of someone like Garry Winogrand, too—that same hunger for the unposed, the unscripted. It’s a reminder that art doesn't always have to be pretty; sometimes it just has to be true.