Songs of the Sky or Equivalent 1923 - 1929

Alfred Stieglitz made this gelatin silver print, Songs of the Sky, maybe you could call it equivalent, which is to say, equivalent to painting. Look at the way the light just sort of *happens* here. It's amazing what he could do with such a limited tonal range, like he was painting with shades of gray. It’s very physical, the way the light and shadow move in and out. You can almost feel the air moving, shifting. Think of the dark mass in the top right-hand corner. It’s so heavy, so pregnant with form. But it’s also dissolving at the edges, becoming pure light. The texture is everything. It's kind of wild, what you can do with black and white, the way it can almost feel like color. This piece puts me in mind of Gerhard Richter’s cloud paintings; they both knew how to work with a limited palette to create something that feels infinite. Art’s always a conversation, right?