Word: atget
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Atget's camera recorded a vanished, rural world...
...sense turns on the thought of stardom, however temporary that blessed state may be. Though most photography is routine, the air is so sodden with "creativity" and "expression" that the idea of being a journeyman photographer seems unthinkable. Hence the difficulty of understanding a career like Eugène Atget...
Today, a lifetime after his death (he was born in 1857 and died in 1927), it would seem very rash to deny that Atget (pronounced At-jay) was one of the great artists of the 20th century. But there is nothing to suggest that he thought so himself. In his old age, he was much admired in the more advanced Parisian cultural circles; the surrealists, for instance, loved the mystery of his street scenes, with their pervasive sense that Something (the surrealist merveilleux) was about to break into the world round the corner, at the end of the perspective...