Versailles, Coin de Parc 1902

Eugène Atget captured this corner of Versailles with his camera and printing out paper. The tones in this photograph are like a delicate watercolor wash, each shade of brown and grey is softly laid over the last. Look at the way the light catches the figures in the fountain and dances across the lawn. These sculptures look like the life drawing class I took in Paris as a student. There are a lot of great figurative sculptors, but for me, it’s the way the light falls in this photo that makes the picture. It’s what brings an otherwise grand, formal scene down to earth. Atget had a real gift for finding the extraordinary in ordinary places and in this way he's like Courbet. They both celebrate daily life and its mundane moments. Atget helps us see that beauty exists even in the quietest of corners.