Streets of Paris

His general note is lyrical understanding of the street, trained observation of it, special feeling for patina, eye for prevailing detail, over all of which is thrown a poetry which is not ‘the poetry of the street’ or ‘the poetry of Paris’, but the projection of Atget’s person.
Walker Evans, 1931*

The most known and celebrated works by Atget are his photographs of the street, which comprise the largest group of images in this exhibition. Atget’s roads, alleys, façades, squares, courtyards and adjoining houses and buildings show a Paris quite remote from the grand gestures (Art Nouveau buildings, large department stores, Folies Bergère and other such spectacles) of the Belle Époque. Few of Atget’s photographs of the street include people so that the city seems depopulated, except for the wraiths and blurs left as traces on his plates from the long exposures.

Atget’s photography became a tool of preservation, an historical testimony and relic of that which disappeared. The way he numbered his negatives chronologically enables us to understand how he proceeded from general to detailed views. Thus in his photographs of Hôtel de la Monnaie, which appear in his series on streets, ornaments and interiors, we can imagine him strolling from façade to stairway to sculpted motif.

*‘The reappearance of photography’, Hound and Horn, Oct–Dec 1931, p 126