Gentilly -- Bièvre

Eugène Atget

1901

A matte albumen silver photograph by Eugène Atget that quietly records a stretch of the Bièvre in Gentilly, intending to preserve the ordinary, vanishing corners of the Paris region with archival clarity.

You’re struck by the narrow, mirror-like canal slicing the picture toward the distance, flanked by leaning stone houses and a tall wooden mill under a pale, empty sky that gives the scene a still, melancholic hush.

Made in 1901 as part of Atget’s systematic documentation of Paris, this unromantic view helped establish documentary photography’s mission to record disappearing urban life and deeply influenced later modern artists and the Surrealists.

Palette

Art Terms

Albumen silver print Photography Documentary photography Cityscape Urbanization Surrealism

Exhibitions

French Photographs: Daguerre to Atget

1945

Photographs Before Surrealism

1968

The Work of Atget: The Art of Old Paris

1982

The Work of Atget: Old France

1981