Book Review: Adam, Hans Christian ed. Paris: Eugene Atget. Taschen, Koln, 2008 edition.

In terms of number and size of images relative to cost, this is perhaps the best collection of Atget’s work currently available.  It contains 204 images, most featured on a single page, though there a few instances of two or even 4 images to a page  The first 14 pages are full-size images, within only a 2cm border.  Other pages have a wider bottom border to accommodate captions.

The book features an essay by Andreas Krase in English, French, German (more on that in a moment) as well as

• a map of Atget’s Paris
• the only three known portraits of Atget 
• photos of his business cards
• photos of covers of Atget’s handmade portfolios
• a biographical timeline
• an abbreviated bibliography
• a glossary of relevant French vocabulary

Images are grouped in the following sections in the following order

• Old Paris
• Stairs
• Paris Interiors
• Trades, Shops and Window Displays
• Vehicles in Paris
• The Inhabitants of the Paris Shanty Towns
• House of Pleasure
• Fairs
• The Outskirts of Paris
• Parks and Castles

Krase is a German academic with a background in historical photography and has written an informative and engaging introductory essay on Atget’s life and work.  It follows a chronological progression similar to the layout of the chapter titles, but veers off now and then in the appropriate places for discussions on art and aesthetics.  As a historian Krase has a eye for compelling detail, particularly contemporary documents that speak directly of Atget, such as an 1892 article from an art journal on Atget’s new service of providing photographs to artists, quotes from Atget’s own correspondence, and memories of a fellow photographer (that of Brassai, from a 1969 article in the magazine Camera, which I cannot find and of which I would appreciate a copy, if you have one).

Krase begins, like Badger, with The Atget Problem, of how someone so apparently unmodern, whose “vision...took so little account of technical perfection” can be so well regarded by such a wide circle of photographers, artist and academics, many often making contradictory claims about his work.  For Krase, Atget’s very indifference to technical mastery makes him representative of “a modernism...committed to a radically functional aesthetic.”  (p81)  He sees the enduring fascination with Atget in the duality of a man with a strong visual aesthetic who spent his life making an inventory of things.

Krase finds Atget eminently practical.  His initial motivation was completely commercial and his lack of interest in technical perfection came in part from an undemanding clientele.  Where some see a strong visual aesthetic at work in images in which he pointed his camera toward the light, creating washed out skies, Krase sees simply the inadequacy of Atget’s photographic equipment and the photographer’s refusal to upgrade a sign that Atget knew his old equipment was essential to his style.  In an interesting section on how the photographer structured his work (of over 8500 plates), there is also evidence of the practical, with work sorted by categories typical of a library catalog.

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