The field of maneuvers in Châlons-sur-Marne c. 1857 - 2005

Gustave Le Gray captured "The field of maneuvers in Châlons-sur-Marne" with a camera, a process as alchemical as any painter's. Look at the way the light pools and fades, as if this wasn't a photograph but an ink wash. There’s a haze, a dreamy quality, as if the scene is recalled from memory. That little structure in the middle distance -- is it a bandstand, a viewing platform? -- it’s like a stage set waiting for a play that never begins. It’s hard to tell. The beauty of this work is its ambiguity. Details are blurred, lost in the sepia tones, and this evokes a feeling that something is missing, not quite there. Like a Manet painting where the edges dissolve into atmosphere, Le Gray gives us a world that’s both present and absent, real and imagined. He reminds me of Gerhard Richter, actually, with his blurred photographs that hover between representation and abstraction, embracing the unpredictable nature of their medium.