Eugene Atget Appreciation

[DREW WILEY]

So maybe he wasn't just photographing the outsides of those businesses with big numbers on the buildings? Or given the evident little library in the room, it could have been his own home studio. I doubt people visited brothels to read books.

 

[Pieter12]

So maybe he wasn't just photographing the outsides of those businesses with big numbers on the buildings? Or given the evident little library in the room, it could have been his own home studio. I doubt people visited brothels to read books.

Maybe they're erotic books? Or something for the prostitutes to read while waiting for clients?

 

[DREW WILEY]

A few rich guys were probably paying him to make pictures of their mistresses, like King Henry II commissioned.

 

[snusmumriken]

A few rich guys were probably paying him to make pictures of their mistresses, like King Henry II commissioned.

You don’t think he was providing copy for artists who didn’t have access to models?

 

[snusmumriken]

I haven't been able to find anywhere a discussion of the economics of Atget's endeavours. He bought 180×240mm Bande Bleue plates, rather than coating his own, and it is said that the total oeuvres amounts to 10,000 plates, which were then contact printed for sale. That's a huge outlay if it was to be recouped piecemeal from artists seeking copy. Even though he ultimately sold large chunks of his collection for what are said to be sizeable amounts of dosh, he must surely have been seriously out of pocket during the process of accumulating them?

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I haven't been able to find anywhere a discussion of the economics of Atget's endeavours. He bought 180×240mm Bande Bleue plates, rather than coating his own, and it is said that the total oeuvres amounts to 10,000 plates, which were then contact printed for sale. That's a huge outlay if it was to be recouped piecemeal from artists seeking copy. Even though he ultimately sold large chunks of his collection for what are said to be sizeable amounts of dosh, he must surely have been seriously out of pocket during the process of accumulating them?

It's fascinating to realize that close to a hundred years after his death there is no single authoritative biography of Atget which could answer these and other questions we have about him. I'm really hoping that 2027, which will mark the centenary of his death, will change that.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I dunno, and am just guessing myself; but good lookin models would have cost him quite a bit up-front money. Would it have been worth it just to try to market stock images to wannabee painters who could go out and select from the usual suspects instead?

What is more interesting is how much of his commercial fare, including this apparently, was culled from serious esthetic discussions of his work. it's probably just too predicatably studio-esque. Mysteries about him remain, and probably always will.

 

[lecarp]

I doubt any further writings on Atget would add anything more than conjecture and speculation, much like these threads.
Atget left us everything we need to know of him, his life's work!

 

[Pieter12]

Although I don’t necessarily take Wikipedia as an ultimate authority, it is usually a good jumping off point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugène_Atget

 

[snusmumriken]

Although I don’t necessarily take Wikipedia as an ultimate authority, it is usually a good jumping off point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugène_Atget

I thought the Wikipedia article was nice and straightforward. Acknowledges the questions that Atget's work throws up, but doesn't indulge in interpretative woffle.

 

[Arthurwg]

This was attributed to Atget; published in Aperture, as I remember.

 

[Pieter12]

The Wikipedia article mentions a series of prostitutes done by Atget. Probably one of them.

 

[DREW WILEY]

His known hooker shots were done in front of street views of their brothels, and they looked the part - mostly tough and ugly. What his alleged market was for certain other shots was is hard to say. In the city of Paris, aspiring painters no doubt had plenty of live anatomy classes and collectives to choose from when viewing models. I have no interest in getting into either his head or that of his potential customers. Perhaps he considered it one of his neighborhood subculture documentation projects. Perhaps something else less noble. From his many other pictures, it's evident that Atget was a complex personality.

 

[Arthurwg]

As I said before, the nudes were supposedly done on commission.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Degas was a contemporary painter of great influence, who did paint brothel scenes, and was known to work from photographs. But advance commissions? - by whom and why? Unless we know that, we really don't know anything. ... just more speculation.

 

[Pieter12]

It doesn't seem so from the Wikipedia article: "In 1920–21, he sold thousands of his negatives to institutions. Financially independent, he took up photographing the parks of Versailles, Saint-Cloud and Sceaux and produced a series of photographs of prostitutes."

 

[DREW WILEY]

Wicki articles vary tremendously in their accuracy. That particular one seems to have some actual homework behind it, and does specifically mention Degas among his painter clients. There's no reason to believe his especially poignant work late in life of Sceaux and St Cloud transpired at the same time as a prostitute project. He'd been making at least a livable income selling his prints for quite awhile already. That Wicki quote is ambiguous at best per the dates of these respective projects. Some were ongoing. But I don't have time to go back into all four volumes of Hambourg's biographical content, if the specific answer is even there.

 

[Arthurwg]

But advance commissions? - by whom and why? Unless we know that, we really don't know anything. ... just more speculation.

France did have a long commercial history of female nude and pornographic photography, so no surprise there.

 

[Pieter12]

France did have a long commercial history of female nude and pornographic photography, so no surprise there.

Aaah...French postcards!

 

[Dr. no]

As noted, he was a flaneur, which would fit in the artist scene. In the US he might have been seen either as a "gentleman of means" or someone "with no visible means of support". Today he would be considered in the gig economy--still a fringe position for some.

Comments on getting up early to avoid the crowds...I don't think so! Then, now, except during plagues and invasions I doubt there have been empty streets in Paris, since there have been streets in Paris.

This and others show the ghost images you would expect, glass plates and slow lens in a dusky street view... and if you look at this gallery most (or so) show people, in anything that shows more than a half-block of a street.

A lovely slice of Paris in time and space...I need days to look through these for familiar places! My memory of Paris in the '70s is closer to some of these than to 2024--that's a scary thought!

 

[cliveh]

As noted, he was a flaneur, which would fit in the artist scene. In the US he might have been seen either as a "gentleman of means" or someone "with no visible means of support". Today he would be considered in the gig economy--still a fringe position for some.

Comments on getting up early to avoid the crowds...I don't think so! Then, now, except during plagues and invasions I doubt there have been empty streets in Paris, since there have been streets in Paris.


View attachment 382770

This and others show the ghost images you would expect, glass plates and slow lens in a dusky street view... and if you look at this gallery most (or so) show people, in anything that shows more than a half-block of a street.

A lovely slice of Paris in time and space...I need days to look through these for familiar places! My memory of Paris in the '70s is closer to some of these than to 2024--that's a scary thought!

You need to spend several minutes looking at this picture to realise just how brilliant it is.

 

[Dr. no]

Not exactly the same perspective, so I don't know if Monsieur Seguin bought a print from Atget, but similar perspective.

What a rabbit hole! A picture I picked just to show the ghosts of a long exposure, and now I've spent time to find a painting of the scene (wikipdia en Francais, il y a plein des autres choses la...). This street was apparently demolished, as the Centre Pompidou is there now, it was the site of public baths for women starting in 1280. Glad he preserved a segment of history! Love or hate the Pompidou (there is no middle ground), that is Surreal
I'm going to have a hard time not obsessing on this topic now. Gotta get back to work.

Useful link:
Museums of Paris

Rechercher | Paris Musées

www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr

 

[cliveh]

Just take a few minutes to really look at this picture. Notice how he doesn't level the camera to include the top of the T and E. The shadow ratios and composition. Keep looking.

 

[cliveh]

And this : -

 

[koraks]

Keep looking.

To see what? There's no doubt about the historic value of Atget's work, or the pleasing aesthetics or compositional merits of some of his photos. But when it comes to composition, I personally don't see how this is notable in any way. To the contrary; I think it's lopsided, unbalanced, awkward and overall unfortunately framed. I think overall it emphasizes that Atget wasn't necessarily interested in the photograph as an artwork as such, but mostly as a means to document the city, and as an aid to the work of his customers/clients. He photographed the thing; the thing of note was not the photograph.