James Agee on Helen Levitt and Much Else (link)
Photo by Walker Evans (via)
On thought in art
“It would be mistaken to suppose that any of the best photography is come at by intellection; it is, like all art, essentially the result of an intuitive process, drawing on all that the artist is rather than on anything he thinks, far less theorizes about. … As small, quick, foolproof cameras became generally available, moreover, the camera has been used so much and so flabbily by so many people that it has acted as a sort of contraceptive on the ability to see.”
On the difficulty of surviving as an artist
“… however, this is a familiar predicament, as old as art itself, and as tiresome at least, one may assume, to the artists who suffer the consequences as to the non-artists to whom it is just a weary cliché. I don’t propose to discuss who, if anyone, is to blame, being all the less interested in such discussion because I don’t think anyone is to blame.”
Luck
“Many people, even some good photographers, talk of the “luck” of photography, as if that were a disparagement. … but it is peculiarly a part of the good photographer’s adventure to know where luck is most likely to lie in the stream, to hook it, and to bring it in without unfair play and without too much subduing it. Most good photographs, especially the quick and lyrical kind, are battles between the artist and luck, and the happiest victories for the artist are draws
‘Pastoral’ subjects
“LIKE MOST good artists, Miss Levitt is no intellectual and no theorist; she works, quite simply, where she feels most thoroughly at home, and that, naturally enough, is where the kind of thing that moves and interests her is likely to occur most naturally and in best abundance … In children and adults alike, of this pastoral stock, there is more spontaneity, more grace, than among human beings of any other kind; and of all city streets, theirs are most populous in warm weather, and most abundant in variety and in beauty, in strangeness, and in humor.
Is it any wonder that I found this writing through Szarkowski? I’d read some of Agee’s film reviews and they were great. This however hits the important issues in photography one after another, and each time strikes them so sweetly, so effective, so accurately that it’s a wonder. It’s sensible, human. A rare quality in art writing.
One of the key issues it bought up is the lack of conscious thought in doing art. I’d agree with that. Although I talk a lot on this blog, and refer to so much reading, writing, and thinking on photography, when out in the field, it is a different story. It is totally kinetic, intuitive, emotional. Taking photos on the street is a physical reaction to the world. I think that’s what’s so lovely about it. That you can do both, analyse and think at home, and act and feel when out. Agee doesn’t even at how much most photographers actually think about photography when they aren’t out there actually doing it. Editing for example, is pure analysis. It is a constant, unbending interest that never leaves. It colours and shapes your vision of everything (expect perhaps the very interior things), forever.
Click on the link in the title.
Posted 2 years ago
