Amiens, portail

Eugène Atget

1921

An albumen silver print by Eugène Atget that closely records a series of medieval stone reliefs on the portal of Amiens Cathedral, made to document and preserve the carved narrative details.

The image hits you with a grid of repeating quatrefoil frames filled with tiny, worn figures—saints, scenes and symbolic motifs—rendered in warm sepia where crisp shadows and soft highlights reveal tool marks and the weathered texture of the stone.

Atget’s photograph exemplifies early documentary photography that used the camera to rescue and study fragile historical craft, supplying images that aided conservation, scholarship, and later artists’ reuse of vernacular and archival imagery.

Palette

Exhibitions

French Photographs: Daguerre to Atget

1945

The Work of Atget: Old France

1981

The Work of Atget: The Art of Old Paris

1982

Photographs Before Surrealism

1968