“My interest in photography, paralleling that in painting, has been based on admiration for its possibility of accounting for the visual world with an exactitude not equaled by any other medium. The difference in the manner of arrival at their destination–the painting being the result of a composite image and the photograph being the result of a single image–prevents these media from being competitive”

Charles Sheeler

I didn’t ‘discover’ Charles Sheeler until years after I began shooting architecture in earnest, began concentrating on the geometric beauty of the built environment, began cropping to the point of abstraction.

Only then, in John Szarkowski’s excellent book ‘Looking at Photographs’ (http://tinyurl.com/d4h5my ) did I stumble on a photograph by Sheer. The image was ‘Cactus and Photographer’s Lamp’ and it wasn’t love at first sight. But something resonated aided and abetted by Szarkowski’s observations.

So I looked further into the life, work and ethos of Mr. Sheeler.

Although Szarkowski didn’t use the term in his brief description of Sheeler, further research led to the term ‘Precisionism’. Apparently Sheeler is credited with both the word and the movement.

Precisionism. Not a pretty word, but on the whole, an apt description.  According to the Museum of Modern Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline, Precisionism is the ‘reduction of compositions to simple shapes and underlying geometrical structures with clear outlines, minimal detail and smooth handling surfaces – an emphasis on the abstract form of the subject.’

As much of my work suggests [eg. Practical Geometry] I’m a disciple. Or so I latterly discovered.

Which is why I like the work of Charles Sheeler. Both his painting for which he was primarily known, and his photography for which he was – and is – highly regarded.

Consider his favorite subject matter: urban and industrial structures and rural architecture, almost always anonymous. Look hard enough and within much, if not most, of the built environment, historical or contemporary, there is geometric beauty. It’s what Sheeler captured and what I try to.

Observers of Sheeler’s work will point out that, generally, it is devoid of sentimentalism or emotion. Art historian John Hughes in his ‘American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America’ says that ‘There was no such thing as a Precisionist pussycat.’

True. But to say that one cannot find emotion, sentiment, even spirituality in the pure shapes and chiarascuro of the often sculptural treatments of architectural and industrial subjects is to deny an equally compelling truth. In fact, Hughes also allows that Sheeler’s vision was both ‘dour and romantic at the same time’.

Initially I didn’t set out to emulate Sheeler, or to become a Precisionist. Mainly because I knew of neither’s existence. But now, if anybody wants to accuse me of being under its influence, I’d be flattered.

Fred Shively