Chinese Summerhall 1983

Robert Rauschenberg made this photograph, Chinese Summerhall. What is it made of? Well, light, time, place, and a specific point of view! The palette is muted, almost faded, like a memory. The textures, though, are so tactile - the bamboo blinds, the rough wall, and the clothes hanging, caught mid-breeze. Look at how the light falls on the clothes; there's a real sense of a specific moment captured. The shadows cast by the washing line become bold graphic elements within the composition. They make you think about how something so ordinary can be so visually arresting. Rauschenberg, like many artists, asks us to see the beauty in the everyday and find poetry in the mundane. Think of some of the early street photography of someone like Brassai. It is a reminder that art is everywhere if we only take the time to look.