Max Norman's "Quoting the World"

Eugène Atget, Pontoise, Place du Grand Martroy (1902)

Max Norman’s “Quoting the World,” in this month’s New York Review of Books, is an excellent review of the exhibition “Eugène Atget: The Making of a Reputation,” at the International Center of Photography, New York. Norman observes that Atget’s photos of the deserted streets of old Paris “still breathe mystery a century after his death.” He says they are “blissfully unburdened by ideas or narratives or even a discernible style.”

I think this is essentially true. Atget’s photos are enigmatic. But do they lack style? Anthony Lane, in his 1994 New Yorker essay on Atget, writes,

There is no mistaking an Atget photograph, but no easy means of describing it, either; he seems to impose no style, and yet no one else, faced with the same scene, could ever have arrived at the same likeness.

Lane identifies several key elements of Atget’s style:

The edges of his buildings are pure and hard, unbothered by background fuss, but as you look into the distance the light relaxes into a feathery haze. You are left with the extraordinary sensation that perspective is a matter not only of space but of time: in front of your eyes it is high noon, but day seems to be breaking at the end of every street.

There is something tense and poised in the decorum of an Atget composition: the camera tends to be tucked down low on its tripod, affording a broad and vulnerable angle, rather than the tight command of a lofted viewpoint. 

His lens never flinched from clutter, of course—from the crust of grime on a stately façade, from unreadable posters peeling off a wall—but the gaze that he levelled at it was clean, wholly immune to the many-angled, tight-nerved scrutiny of the modernists.

That is one reason his work has barely dated: you can fill it with Frenchness—any kind you like, from whatever period, according to taste. It beckons you into its unexceptional landscapes, its well-stocked but crowdless shops, and your gaze is free to wander, because there’s no one else around.

And Lane makes this crucial point: 

His prey was more elusive than you might expect—not the proud, orderly streets planned by Haussmann but all that was ignored in that grand design: the arcana of the old city, its brothels and doorways and dirty fountains, the stages on which its daily drama was played out. Atget stopped to absorb the detail that others failed to notice, but he couldn’t have cared less about seeing the sights. Not once, in almost forty years behind a camera, did he point it at the Eiffel Tower.

Atget stopped to absorb the detail that others failed to notice – right there, I think, is Atget’s governing aesthetic. 

Photography Is Not Description

Eugène Atget, Café, Boulevard Montparnasse, 6th and 14th Arrondissement (1925)

John Szarkowski, in his brilliant Atget (2000), wrote, “Atget’s art was based on the identification and clear description of significant fact.” An excellent observation, except the word “description” muddies its meaning. Photography doesn’t describe; it transcribes. It records. 

John Berger, in his Understanding a Photograph (2013), said, “Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation, or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.”

Stanley Cavell, in his Cavell on Film (2005), put it this way:

A representation emphasizes the identity of its subject, hence it may be called a likeness; a photograph emphasizes the existence of its subject, recording it, hence it is that it may be called a transcription. 

Perhaps I’m too hung up on this distinction between description and transcription. But, too me, it seems crucial. It’s the difference between painting and photography. It’s the difference between writing and photography.

I’d amend Szarkowski’s sentence to “Atget’s art was based on the identification and clear transcription of significant fact.” 

March 9, 2026, Issue

I love photography writing. There’s an interesting piece by Hilton Als in this week’s New Yorker. It’s a review of “Eugène Atget: The Making of a Reputation” at the International Center of Photography. Als likes the show. He says he’s “grateful for any opportunity to investigate this essentially mysterious work, which pushes you away even as it pulls you in.”

I’m not sure what Als means when he says Atget’s photos “push you away.” Maybe he’s referring to their silence. He writes,

When I was younger and didn’t “get” Atget, I thought of his images as silent, with no action, no story. But now I can see that they are full of story—the story of time and its passage. My visits to the I.C.P. convinced me that Atget knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to make an epic record of time and place.

I like that passage, although I’d alter it slightly. Instead of “full of story,” I’d say “full of time and place.” Atget’s photos are an epic record of time and place. 

Postscript: Another excellent New Yorker piece on Atget’s photography is Anthony Lane’s “A Balzac of the Camera” (April 25, 1994). Lane says, “Atget stopped to absorb the detail that others failed to notice.” Right there, I think, is the essence of Atget’s brilliant art. 

Eugène Atget, Bourg-la-Reine, ferme Camille Desmoulins (1901)

Favorite Photo Reviews 3: Anthony Lane's "A Balzac of the Camera"

Eugène Atget, Café, Boulevard Montparnasse, 6th and 14th Arrondissement (1925)

This is the eighth post in my “Favorite Photo Reviews” series. Today’s pick is Anthony Lane’s “A Balzac of the Camera” (The New Yorker, April 25, 1994; retitled “Eugène Atget,” in his great 2002 essay collection Nobody’s Perfect).   

It’s a review of Atget Paris, a fat paperback of Eugène Atget photos published in 1992 by Hazan/Ginkgo Press. Lane writes,

There is no mistaking an Atget photograph, but no easy means of describing it, either; he seems to impose no style, and yet no one else, faced with the same scene, could ever have arrived at the same likeness. He is known, sometimes dismissively, for the conjuring of atmosphere; this book directs you to his mastery of line as well. (It’s worth recalling that Walker Evans and Ansel Adams were among Atget’s earliest fans.) The edges of his buildings are pure and hard, unbothered by background fuss, but as you look into the distance the light relaxes into a feathery haze. You are left with the extraordinary sensation that perspective is a matter not only of space but of time: in front of your eyes it is high noon, but day seems to be breaking at the end of every street.

Lane says that it was Atget’s lifework “to capture Paris in photographs.” He says,

His prey was more elusive than you might expect - not the proud, orderly streets planned by Haussmann but all that was ignored in that grand design: the arcana of the old city, its brothels and doorways and dirty fountains, the stages on which the daily drama was played out. Atget stopped to absorb the detail that others failed to notice, but he couldn’t have cared less about the seeing the sights. Not once, in almost forty years behind the camera, did he point it at the Eiffel Tower.

Atget stopped to absorb the detail that others failed to notice - how I love that line! It’s one of my favourites in all of art criticism. Stopping to absorb the detail that others failed to notice is exactly what great artists do. It’s one of their prime impulses. This piece by Lane is one of my touchstones.

Does Photography Describe?

Eugène Atget, Café, Boulevard Montparnasse (1925)

Does photography describe? Kevin Moore says it does. In his Old Paris and Changing New York (2018), he says of Eugène Atget, “His images of Paris architecture, street vendors, shop windows, and parks were pure description, full of detail and information, so unlike the highly mannered, posed, and soft-focused art photography of the time.” He says it again later in his book, this time in reference to Berenice Abbott: “The Salon de l’Escalier crystallized for Abbott something she had already grasped intuitively: an idea of photography as an artistic medium that was unconditionally descriptive.”

I think I know what Moore is trying to get at – photography as an act of concentrated attention (“Atget stopped to absorb the detail that others failed to notice” – Anthony Lane, “A Balzac of the Camera,” The New Yorker, April 25, 1994). But I’m not sure “description” is the right word for it. Writing describes; painting describes. Photography transcribes. “A representation emphasizes the identity of its subject, hence it may be called a likeness; a photograph emphasizes the existence of its subject, recording it, hence it is that it may be called a transcription”: Stanley Cavell, “What Photography Calls Thinking” (Cavell on Film, 2005).