Getty Museum
Parc de Saint Cloud
Creator
Eugène AtgetFrench Photographer · 1857–1927
All works by this person →Eugène Atget never called himself a photographer; instead he preferred "author-producer." A private, almost reclusive man, Atget first tried his hand at painting and acting, then began to photograph *vieux Paris* (Old Paris) in 1898. He photographed in part to create "documents," as he called his photographs, of architecture and urban views, but he supported himself by selling these photographs to
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1904
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 5da779e6-67b2-4068-bb51-f19f4ddd9352
From the Getty Museum record
Numerous staircases were necessary to connect the various sections of the gardens on the sloping terrain of Saint-Cloud, a royal summer retreat on the River Seine. This one linked the terrace of the château to that of a horseshoe-shaped basin. Although decorative vases remained at the top of the flight of stairs when Eugène Atget made this photograph, the sculptures that once stood on the blocks of stone halfway up the flight had disappeared. His diagonal perspective resulted in a composition of abstract repeated forms, where curving stairs appear as the receding lines of a harmonious and rhythmic study. From the 1700s on, many artists painted the gardens of Saint-Cloud, most often as a landscape or, in some examples, as the background for picnics, parties, and puppet shows. Atget made this image as part of his collection of "documents for artists," which were meant to be used as source material by all types of artists.
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