Saturday 9 May 2009

urban nature #10


© paul willaert (calais - april 2009)

1 comment:

drew said...

I've been thinking about this photo for days, Paul. It's been stuck in my head. I've been turning it over and over, calling it to mind, rebuilding it in my memory. The other image that my brain's filed it next to I first saw several years ago while reading a New York Times' review of a show at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. The show was about the personal and artistic relationship between the painters Paul Cezanne and Camille Pissarro. One of the images that accompanied the review was of a landscape paiting by Cezanne entitled, "The House of the Hanged Man, Auvers-sur-Oise" (1873). You can see the image if you follow this link to the original review.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/arts/design/24cott.html

Once you're there, be sure to hit the "enlarge this image" button so you can see the full painting.

There are so many similarities in framing, in the manipulation of space, in the way the images (yours and Cezanne's) are both strangely flat and yet also deep as well. In that last regard, this one might very well have fit under your "canvas" header as well.

The two water tower photographs work quite nicely together. I like the Bechers typology shots, but I like these (and their color) more.