“The beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,” (Plato). Within the measure of arts, according to Plato, there are not only the measures of the overt visual referents, but one must also consider a, “view to the attainment of the,” work. By way of focus and reconsideration, the seemingly banal is, in fact, anything but.
Such visual simplicity including muted colors, lone subjects, barren settings, and the subtle use of empty space is executed in a series of untitled photographic images created in the 1970s by William Eggleston, displayed in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The immediate measure with which my eyes are initiated are the intersections of diagonal lines which sharply pierce through various planes of the entire image. Several of the photographs included within this collection of work uphold a simple and frank composition. The prints include the precise dosage of spunk that keeps my eyes wanting to continue to dance about the prints.
In addition to what I can perceive about a print- the matter- the manner in which the artist produced the work is where I must also delve into next; I mull over how the artist may possibly have intended his viewers to think about his process; my mind begins to create its own narrative about the work and the stories’ possibilities become endless and infinite despite the visual simplicity.
Eggleston’s understated styling has a sizable impact on how I view his artwork, as well as others’. The universal consideration of measure in regards to the writings of Plato assisted my imaginative capabilities to understand that that which has not been captured for a photograph, or on any medium of print for that matter, is tremendously vital to how a body of work develops, but is so often overlooked or misunderstood.
Eggleston’s prints were created over the course of a cross-country journey.
Whether the expedition was solo or not, I am unaware. Nonetheless, I must presume that the images that he produced from that journey speak many more volumes than just the visual documentation of our country.
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CITED WORKS:
Image: "Untitled, [Peaches]". William Eggleston. 1973.
Plato. "Arts and Measure." The Statesman.
Plato. "Imitative Art, Definition and Criticism." The Republic. Book II, 400.
