Horses--Farming 1941 - 1945

Robert Frank took this photograph, "Horses--Farming," with a camera, at an unknown date. It's a small, intimate square, and what strikes me is how he uses light and shadow almost like a painter uses pigment. The photo's surface has a grainy, almost tactile quality. Look at the way the light catches the horses' heads, how it models their forms. Frank isn't smoothing things out. He's interested in the grit, the realness. Notice the intricate network of straps and reins against the soft focus of the background. It's like a drawing, all these lines crisscrossing, holding the composition together. It reminds me a bit of some of the Ashcan School painters, like George Bellows, who were also drawn to the everyday and weren't afraid to get a little rough around the edges. And like those painters, Frank isn't trying to give us easy answers. He's inviting us to look, to feel, and to find our own meaning in the image.