One of the reasons I decided to go back to school was to gain a greater understanding of art. I often had a feeling that a lot of it was beyond my grasp and that if I could get a handle on some of the things that other people were trying to do with their art, it would in turn improve my own work. I have a great class this semester called “Understanding Visual Language” which is geared toward just that. Some of it is a little intimidating; the first reading assignment we had was 30 pages of artspeak blah-blah about “primitivism” and “postmodernism” and many other “isms” and “subect vs. object.” Some of the paragraphs are longer than an entire page, and with my short attention span, required re-reading a couple of times before I could fully comprehend them.
But even though participation in the discussions is a big part of the grade, and I’ll be the first to admit that talking in a group is not my strong suit, things have improved substantially since that first reading. We’re now getting into the textbook for the class, called Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, which I highly recommend because it’s written in a very accessible way and is really quite fascinating. The first chapter is about representation and ideology and how we tend to look at things with preconceived notions based on ideas our particular society accepts as truths, or “givens,” but in actuality are just “myths,” according to French theorist Roland Barthes. Barthes says that “…myth is the hidden set of rules and conventions through which meanings, which are in reality specific to certain groups, are made to seem universal and given for a whole society” (Strunk & Cartwright, 19).
Our first assignment was to write a 2-page interpretation of the above photograph by William Eggleston. Something you should know about Eggleston is that he was the first photographer ever to have a one-person show of color photographs at MOMA in New York. Prior to that, color photography was not seen as art in the same way that black and white was. I was a little worried about this assignment, for reasons I’ll share later, but I am really curious to know what others think of this photograph. If anyone is interested, I’ll post a link to my paper after I see what kind of responses I get.
It is a very interesting picture, lovely sense of for shortening, and a good sense of symmetry. I love the mood it conveys, a feeling of anticipation, what’s going on inside the house? It also has a mundanity about it too, just normal stuff! I like it very much, nostalgic!
Interesting that it does not provoke me to like or dislike, snap judgments most of make I guess. What kept me looking was what I couldn’t see or suss out. Where are the signs of life?
What is beyond what appears to be a near horizon? The lift to that edge hints at a drop as if this location were on a plateau.
Although the age of the car hints at it’s place in time, that could be a construct. I can’t place the season – it could be the tail end of a balmy winter or the latest part of fall, the weather here in the south tends to be clueless. Lots of frustration in this frame.
How much of the reaction to this image is the familiarity with the scene depicted? As I’m not from US, the ‘icons’ that it represents are not ones that mean anything to me – I might feel differently if it was of the UK.
Looking at it as an image without those associations I like the composition , particularly the road leading over the horizon and the subtlety of the colour. I played with it in Photoshop first desaturating (pretty dull, not enough tonal contast in B&W) and then in full saturation ( surprising colours in there: peach pavement, purple road)
How big is the original? – size can have a big impact on perception. I remember how shocked I was when I saw a particular Paul Klee painting often reproduced in posters in the flesh – it was tiny but jewel -like,a completely different experience. I can imagine if this Eggleston is very large it would draw you in.
I am VERY interested in your paper, especially since I’ve started a Master of Liberal Arts program with a personal focus on poetry and visual art.
Feel free to send a link my way–for whatever it’s worth, I have posted links to some of my own art history-ish projects on my blog and on a blog I started to focus on my coursework.
lwitzel {at} austin {dot} rr {dot} com
Now, here’s my $0.02 worth on the Eggleston pic.
The baggage-laden iconography of “home” and “road” are too rich to ignore. I could spend some time riffing on D. H. Lawrence’s notion of Americans as isolate and hard (from his quote, “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.”) and how Eggleston’s isolate POV (the viewer seemingly crouched and receding from everything in their environment) is not the same thing.
I could riff on the way the horizon line almost functions as a drain, pulling the what’s seen ever back and away from the viewer, the way the clouds lower the sky and keep the viewer compressed and low to the road.
More riffing: the car, so still it could be holding its breath, is an obstacle between the viewer and the open line of the road–an interesting and unexpected tension between the potential for motion and something blocked. The tiny vertical “stakes” made from the mailbox and the trees, like pushpins tacking the subdivision down loosely on the earth. The Vermeer-like light on the second-story of the near house, echoing the sliver of light on the car’s hardtop and the pearly clouds to the right in the image — heaven touching the mundane. And the wild and undisciplined grasses breaking past the concrete curb, bits of nature pressing hard on our edged order.
Anyhow, there’s a lot in the pic that sings to me, it’s like a very laconic, drawled sonnet in it’s composition and reticence.
When I saw the date the first thing that entered my mind is that the area is probably wall to wall with houses now where in the picture you can see miles of emptiness. It is surprising that even though it looks like a fairly rural scene there is a sidewalk. Most of our rural subdivisions don’t have sidewalks. There is a lonely, almost deserted feeling to the picture.
Hi Deirdre,
just found out about your blog, and am happy that I’ll be able to follow your work/ideas more closely now. You know how much I love your work! Let me know if you need some yummy silk and velvet scraps.
All the best!
Dagmar
The picture feels empty, although there are signs of life.
I thought about the massive growth of the suburbs in the 50’s – this one looks like it’s on the very fringe of building and encroachment on farmland – and how it was dependent on the car.
I also noticed the stationary car getting in the way of the road to the horizon.
I just saw a documentary on photography that included Eggleston and journalists trying to interview him. He clearly hated putting words or meaning to his photos so it’s an interesting choice your instructor made.
Please post your essay.
I didn’t find the photograph interesting. Dull, lifeless, brittle, depressed. Empty.
Art appreciation in my college was “taught” by grad students. They had their own agenda and I ended up with my own. I like it. I don’t like it. I can’t spend too much time “learning” to like something. I would have walked right by this photograph in a gallery.