Porch Shadows

<p>Paul Strand spent the summer of 1916 at his family’s cottage in Twin Lakes, Connecticut, attempting to give his understanding of Cubist art—abstraction through fragmentation, multiple points of view, and a reduction of people and objects to basic geometry—a photographic form. Strand made several radical choices in this work: he abandoned the traditional, upright perspective of the photograph; caused the table to appear tipped, as if to suspend its utilitarian function; deployed shadows to create powerful compositional diagonals; and suggested objectivity in the crispness of his negative and print. When <em>Porch Shadows</em> appeared in the final issue of <em>Camera Work</em>, it was a clear signal of a new aesthetic. As Strand wrote, true modernists should avoid all “tricks of process or manipulation” to celebrate photography’s inherent qualities as art.</br>For more on the Alfred Stieglitz collection at the Art Institute, along with in-depth object information, please visit the website: <a href="http://media.artic.edu/stieglitz">The Alfred Stieglitz Collection</a>.</p>