Getty Museum
Brooklyn Bridge
Creator
Walker EvansAmerican Photographer · 1903–1975
All works by this person →> Leaving aside the mysteries and the inequities of human talent, brains, taste, and reputations, the matter of art in photography may come down to this: it is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt. > > -- Walker Evans Walker Evans began to photograph in the late 1920s, making snapshots during a European trip. Upon his return to New Y
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- October 28, 1929
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
"Under thy shadow by the piers I waited; / Only in darkness is thy shadow clear. / O Sleepless as the river under thee," wrote poet Hart Crane in his epic ode to the Brooklyn Bridge, titled simply *The Bridge*. Although this was not one of the three Walker Evans photographs that illustrated the 1930 edition of Crane's work, this image could easily have been made with the above passage in mind. Evans positioned himself beneath the bridge, shooting up at the structure at a skewed angle that distorts perspective. The sweeping underside of the roadway dominates the frame, its imposing blackness an ominous focus beside the familiar arch of the upper bridge.
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