Fig 1. Nude by Edward Weston.
Together with Atget, Edward Weston is one of my top boys. I was wounded when I read a quote from Weston criticizing Atget's technical abilities. However, in Westons own book 'America and photography' 1929 He uses a quote from Van Gogh stating: "A feel for things in themselves is much more important than a sense of the pictorial" Weston is not a pictorial photographer and neither was Atget. Admittedly, He is not the most gifted technically but the way he captured a sense of presence in his human less town and cityscape's and the strange atmosphere surrounding many of his natural forms (trees), illustrates Van Gogh's point perfectly. To further strengthen my point, A quote from Weston himself in the same book : "But for the sake of argument - the difference between good and bad art in any medium or of any age lies in the creative mind rather than in skill of hands."
Fig 1. Is one of the most beautiful pictures of a woman I have ever seen. We are not permitted to see her face. In fact biologically we cannot be 100% it is a woman. For me form is everything in this image. Through form and light Weston captures the essence of the eternal woman.
Fig 2. 'Pepper' by Edward Weston.
Many have interpreted Westons peppers and other assorted vegetables as "overly sexual". This may be because Freudian thinking was in Vogue at the time or that they simply had filthy minds. The peppers in particular are seductively sensual but to my mind Weston was thinking more about sculpture rather than sex when the moment came to release his shutter. Sculpture is something I harp on about alot I know , but Weston was actually accused of imitating the work of the Romanian sculptor Brancusi.
In one of his diary entries from the thirties Weston writes "No sculptor can be wholly abstract. We cannot imagine forms not already existing in nature,- we know nothing else." Weston admits that he may have been inspired by Brancusi but puts it down to them both having the same (inner) eye. He goes on to say: "Nature has all the abstract (simplified) forms, that Brancusi or any other artist could imagine. With my camera I have gone straight to Brancusis source. One might as well say that Brancusi imitates nature, as to accuse me of imitating, Brancusi" LOL.
In my as yet uneducated opinion Ed. Weston is the Zen master of photography. Zen is about 'seeing' what is Really there, instead of what our polluted minds tells us. Weston urges us as photographers to get into rhythm with the universe. Only then can we capture the eternal that lies within all natural forms.
Fig 3. Point Lobos 1946.
Reading : The Photograph by Graham Clark.
No comments:
Post a Comment