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Lee Friedlander's photographs of women in their birthday suits leave me cold, but they invite comparison with Edward Weston's classic black and white nudes. Bare breasts and buttocks took on another dimension when Weston was behind the camera; his headless torsos more closely resemble the work of painters and sculptors than the passionless images of ladies decapitated by Friedlander and other contemporary photographers. Charis Wilson's memoir of posing for (and living with) Weston--and her under-the-skin take on the thought process behind his nude studies--is fascinating.
Review
"To Weston's eye . . . the landscape of the human body was an unending revelation of forms both voluptuous and abstract. His genius as an artist lay in his ability to respond to both with equal passion."--Hilton Kramer, the New York Times
"It was as though the things of everyday experience had been transformed for Weston into organic sculptures, the forms of which were both the expression and the justification of the life within. The exhilarating visual purity of Weston's work is the product of a deeper achievement: He had freed his eyes of conventional expectation, and had taught them to see the statement of intent that resides in natural form."--John Szarkowski, Looking at Photographs
"Edward Weston understood thoughts and concepts which dwell on simple mystical levels. His work--direct and honest as it is--leaped from a deep intuition and belief in the forces beyond the apparent and factual. He accepted these forces as completely real and part of the total world of man and nature, only a small portion of which most of us experience directly. . . . And it was Weston who accomplished more than anyone, with the possible exception of Alfred Stieglitz, to elevate photography to the status of fine-art expression."--Ansel Adams
"It was as though the things of everyday experience had been transformed for Weston into organic sculptures, the forms of which were both the expression and the justification of the life within. The exhilarating visual purity of Weston's work is the product of a deeper achievement: He had freed his eyes of conventional expectation, and had taught them to see the statement of intent that resides in natural form."--John Szarkowski, Looking at Photographs
"Edward Weston understood thoughts and concepts which dwell on simple mystical levels. His work--direct and honest as it is--leaped from a deep intuition and belief in the forces beyond the apparent and factual. He accepted these forces as completely real and part of the total world of man and nature, only a small portion of which most of us experience directly. . . . And it was Weston who accomplished more than anyone, with the possible exception of Alfred Stieglitz, to elevate photography to the status of fine-art expression."--Ansel Adams
