Getty Museum
Kelmscott Manor: In the Attics (No. 1).
Creator
Frederick H. EvansBritish Photographer · 1853–1943
All works by this person →The writer George Bernard Shaw said of his friend Frederick Evans's work: "Mr. Evans has set a standard in photography that most of us find entirely impossible to live up to. He is a gentleman who has dedicated himself to an art which is disparaged by those who believe that when a lens is in a box it is mechanical, but not when it is in a man's head." Evans, a bookseller by trade, distinguished hi
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1896
- Medium
- Platinum print
- Culture
- British
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Frederick Evans's architectural study of the attic at Kelmscott Manor, a medieval house, part of which dates from 1280, is a visual geometry lesson. The composition is all angles and intersections, formed not only by the actual structure but also by the graphic definition of light within the space. Soft illumination bathes the area near the stairs, while the photograph's foreground plunges into murky darkness. The sharp angles of intersecting planes are mediated by the rough-hewn craftsmanship of the beams and posts, almost sensuous in their sinewy imperfection and plainly wrought by hand. The platinum print medium favored by Evans provides softened tonalities that further unify the triangles, squares, and diagonal lines of the dynamic composition.
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