W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #edwardweston, #nautilus, #daybooks

Edward Weston embraces the notion of perfection in his “Nautilus”.  If that were possible in nature, this is it and here’s a damned fine picture of it.  I am so enchanted by the impossibility of this piece that I ordered an actual shell on e-Bay so my eye could occasionally light on it on the shelf and remind myself of the fullness of life.

After he died, his friend Nancy Newhall wrote “Edward 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 forces beyond the apparent and the 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.  As with any great artist or imaginative scientist, the concept is immediate and clear, but the working out takes time, effort and conscious evaluations.  Edward Weston's work stood for him as a complete statement of the man and his art”. *1

His lover and partner Tina Modotti wrote to him: “It is mystical and erotic”.*2

Weston wrote of his own experience of these shells: “If I am stimulated and work with real ecstasy, it will live.”*3

Ecstasy is a constant with Weston.

There are at least ten nudes in a series called “Oceano” by Edward Weston (1886-1958).  These feature his lover Charis Wilson and were apparently impromptu, occasioned by her taking off her clothes and “diving down a steep slope.”*4  Wilson appears to flop around attractively, and these appear to me as managed through a very male gaze with the woman as a compliant acquiescent accomplice.

One of them however seems to turn the tables on this scenario — at least as I read it.  There is one with Wilson on her back with her legs up, knees bent.  Of all the possible positions this might read like the most vulnerable pose, traditional female on the bottom.  This particular image feels different in that the model seems to be totally in charge and directing the sequence, offering up only what she chooses.  She dominates.

Nude work is necessarily complicated by the sexual politics of who is in charge, and this one is different.  It feels as if she has changed up the relationship between artist and muse.

Whatever actually happened, the sequence is remarkable.  She is gorgeous, loose limbed, her body hair is un-manicured, her skin is translucently luminous.  There are no shadows  She floats in a limbo of light and space.  She is both still and ecstatic and in control.

*1 Nancy Newhall, “Edward Weston, the flame of recognition: his photographs accompanied by excerpts from the daybooks & letters” Aperture 1975

*2 Edward Weston, The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Vol. II California, Aperture, Millerton, 1973, p. 31.

*3 Edward Weston, The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Vol. II California, Aperture, Millerton, 1973, p. 21.

*4 Edward Weston, Daybooks”, 1944

©2021

These posts are from my new project “Great Photographs …or, at least, Some Really Good Ones”.  Photo, text, and some times, audio or video.

#somereallygoodones, #theunseeneye, #wmhunt, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs,#howilookatphotographs, #photographsfromtheunconsicous, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstormhopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotographsogooditmakesyoufartlightning, #photographychangedmylifeitgavemeone, #edwardweston, #nautilus, #daybooks, #charisindunes, #oceano, #nude