Versailles, Coin de Parc 1903

Editor: So, here we have Eugène Atget's photograph, "Versailles, Coin de Parc," taken in 1903. It's a print capturing a corner of the Versailles gardens. It feels so…stark, almost desolate despite the grandeur. What catches your eye in this particular composition? Curator: It's the quiet melancholy, isn’t it? Atget, he wasn't just documenting, he was, I think, elegizing a fading world. Look at the statue. He isn't heroic. He’s just… there. Is he contemplating? Weary? Editor: Definitely not your typical triumphant monument. More like a… philosophical observer? Curator: Precisely! Think about what Versailles represented then – faded aristocratic glory. And here's Atget, decades after the revolution, framing its remnants not as power, but as a memory, softened by the silver gelatin. Like time itself is blurring the edges, dimming the splendor. Notice how he places the statue - turning away as though disinterest? Editor: The garden stretches into the distance, meticulously ordered yet… empty. Do you think he's commenting on the artificiality of it all? Curator: Maybe. Or perhaps it’s a more personal meditation on permanence and change. What remains when the kings are gone? Only stone, earth, and the endless turning of seasons and our perspective is the memory. A lovely paradox. The photo, the statue, are beautiful but frozen, whilst gardens move, bloom and fade. The essence is to make sure we have fresh perspectives when capturing something so rooted to our very ideas of what is beautiful or otherwise. Editor: It makes you wonder what stories these silent corners could tell. Curator: Exactly! It's like Atget gave the gardens a voice, a muted one, full of reflection and I think also possibly the quiet joy found simply in the details of life, of a particular day. You get that feeling as well? Editor: I think so! I initially found it bleak, but now it feels more…contemplative, timeless. It gives space for thoughts, makes room for possibilities. Curator: That’s it, perfectly put! It seems there is nothing there and the photograph seems boring at first glance but really Atget opens a tiny, beautiful doorway with his work. I think he made you, and also me in doing this, more sensitive as to what might lay beneath, no? Editor: Definitely. I won't look at Versailles, or any garden, the same way again!