Art as affirmation of life: Ansel Adams' photograph exhibit ar the Detroit Institue of Arts
Irena Janjic
Issue date: 4/3/07 Section: Features
- Page 1 of 2 next >
Figuring out how to best develop 4Ps for a new product, stomping the men in ice hockey, and simply happy hour-ing way too much, I forgot how neglected the right side of my brain has been lately. I visited the Detroit Institute of Arts this past weekend and let the imaginative yet authentic aura of Ansel Adams' photographs alleviate my analytics-and-socializing-preoccupation.
If art is affirmation of life, as Adams' suggests, I had been considerably dormant for a while and was in dire need of awakening, even if only for a day. The "American images captured by an American master" exhibit was comprised of 4 or 5 small rooms and nooks adorned with Adams' photographs, that can be perused in just a few minutes, even at a casual pace. However, most visitors including me, dove into each photo before us and let the audio tour take us through the historic development of each shot. After examining the poignant black and white landscape portraits by America's best-known and most famous photographer, the crowd slowly dissipated and I was left alone with each photograph, to study the complex shades and moods; my afternoon was joyfully taken over by the soft-focus luminescence.
The exhibit covered Adams' entire career in a hundred or so photographs, from the 20's to the 70's, illustrating his unrelenting love for nature and his talent for transforming pictorial landscapes into expressive pieces of artist.
Ever since his first family vacation to Yosemite in 1916 and shortly after joining the Sierra Club, Adams became a student of everything wilderness-related; whether it was a National Park, the Sierra Nevada or the Canadian Rockies, he learned about mountain shadows, tree bark textures, and curvatures of valleys and peaks. Through my eyes, his photographs illustrated a passion for nature and reminded me of the inherent beauty in our world. In his words, "I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us."
If art is affirmation of life, as Adams' suggests, I had been considerably dormant for a while and was in dire need of awakening, even if only for a day. The "American images captured by an American master" exhibit was comprised of 4 or 5 small rooms and nooks adorned with Adams' photographs, that can be perused in just a few minutes, even at a casual pace. However, most visitors including me, dove into each photo before us and let the audio tour take us through the historic development of each shot. After examining the poignant black and white landscape portraits by America's best-known and most famous photographer, the crowd slowly dissipated and I was left alone with each photograph, to study the complex shades and moods; my afternoon was joyfully taken over by the soft-focus luminescence.
The exhibit covered Adams' entire career in a hundred or so photographs, from the 20's to the 70's, illustrating his unrelenting love for nature and his talent for transforming pictorial landscapes into expressive pieces of artist.
Ever since his first family vacation to Yosemite in 1916 and shortly after joining the Sierra Club, Adams became a student of everything wilderness-related; whether it was a National Park, the Sierra Nevada or the Canadian Rockies, he learned about mountain shadows, tree bark textures, and curvatures of valleys and peaks. Through my eyes, his photographs illustrated a passion for nature and reminded me of the inherent beauty in our world. In his words, "I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us."
Be the first to comment on this story