A Car Darkly

          A poster-sized framed ink-jet print of Charles Harbutt's 1971 photograph titled “Car in Alley, Leadville, CO” is being shown until June 1, 2014 as part of his “Departures and Arrivals” collection at the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography.ⁱ The black and white print is a wash of grays with only a few small patches of solid blacks and very little white.ⁱⁱ The effect is like tenebrism flipped on its head. Instead of strong contrasts between localized highlights in a generally dark composition, or chiaroscuro-like use of tonality to produce depth in the work, the grays of the print offer a neutral palette from which sparkling white highlights and deep blacks burst forth.ⁱⁱⁱ The effect is as equally dramatic as any of the classic masters' drama and tension achieved with the contrasty techniques, but the conflict is completely driven by the gray-tones.

          From the muted illumination, a portion of a chromed bumper and grill of a late-model Cadillac seems to creep out of a back alley. A brick wall obscures half of one of the headlights, most of the hood and the rest of the car. Just in the frame-within-the-framed print, the chromed windshield wiper, and driver-side mirror can barely be seen. The organic lines of the car's hood, accentuated by the chromed front fin, and the center-hood crease, draw the eye back to where the driver would be, but the wall, every so slightly in soft-focus, denies the viewer the ability to see the human implied by the photograph.

          Small raindrops streak down the wall at a sharp angle. The bricks naturally form a series of nearly-vertical and horizontal lines that pull the eye down and back toward the center of the frame, but the violent slashes of the rain drops interrupt the flow and focus attention in a dark hole that appears in one of the bricks. One cluster of droplets seem to point directly to the hole, making it impossible to bypass while visually tracing the circuit of the photograph. The mostly-smooth surface of the finished bricks is in other places marred by small pockmarks and scratches. Missing and damaged edges of a few of the corner bricks interrupt the otherwise continuous slightly skewed vertical line which severs the car.

          As if emerging from the wall itself, the right side of the bumper transitions from brick to chrome, and from hard lines to an undulating, flowing stream of brilliant whites. The highly polished bumper reflects intricate curved lines and knobs of the grill, which terminate in vivid reflections of the indistinct sky. The diffused overhead illumination fills and is reflected forward from the headlights, as if the sunlight was the bulbs. The license plate curves down and away from the frame and the leading point of the bumper cuts off most of the numbers, denying the viewer even more context. Still, the cresting lower silhouette that represents the Colorado mountains can be seen, confirming the car's origin matches the title of the work.

          The deep blackness of the painted metal hood obscures its shape except where the curves reflect the sky. The metal is pockmarked with splashes of rain. The contrast of the wet and the dry spaces between the drops gives the smooth metal a texture that seems to complement the asphalt, without making the car appear as run-down as the broken, potholed pavement. The far wall of the alley has a natural texture and shading that appears to be rough-hewn stone, or earth. The varying fields of dark and light grays seem almost like a stand-in for the hidden stormy sky somewhere above.

          In general, this photograph is as much about what is not shown as what is. The missing, driver, the missing context, the missing sky; all seem to give an air of mystery to it. All of the active “doers” in this photograph are outside the frame, or screened from view. Instead, we have the result of the action: rain drops on the wall, pavement, and car, but no drops falling, and no clouds to see. The car seems to be in motion, or ready to burst forth from the alley, but no intention can be read in a human face. The headlights make a poor stand-in as they often appear aggressive, if not angry, especially when paired with prow-like pointed bumpers and sharp wing-like fins. Had any of the active elements been in focus more, like moving the perspective a few feet to the right as to remove the wall from the composition, any sense of drama in the photograph would likely have been lost.

          This generated mystery allows the viewer to project many different possibilities into the frame. Perhaps the car is simply parked there, and the driver has gone inside the brick building. However, the suppression of context makes it impossible to tell what kind of building the driver might have had reason to go inside. That the car is in a back alley is not immediately clear either, or, more precisely, the type of back alley is also hidden by the composition. Outside the fact that it is paved but neglected, and walled in by a cut into a steep hill, no other information can be found. So, it could be any number of types of buildings that could have any number of types of reasons for any number of types of drivers to have business inside (or out).

          Instead, the viewer is forced to read into the painting the culturally defined messages of what can be seen. The small hole in a brick wall has become a well-understood symbol of violence to a post-World War Two generation. While certainly not the only interpretation, for someone like myself, having seen the long-after-effects of war and the immediate results as well, it is difficult to not see a hole in a brick wall as not emblematic of conflict. How much more for a generation that had just emerged from The War, and even more so given the political unrest as a result of the Vietnam War. Given the period, the lingering memories of past conflicts, the new social consciousness of the day, and images of violence being broadcast and displayed regularly throughout the country, it seems to me that the hole in the wall, violence, and the driver-less car are inescapably linked in this photograph. This is further amplified by the out-of-frame storm. The raindrops show that action happened or is beginning here. What type? The viewer cannot tell, but the tension that storms bring to art is rarely pleasant.^iv

          Along with the implied hidden violence, the car, itself, comes loaded with culturally derived iconography. In the US the car is a symbol of freedom, and self-reliance. However, certain cars, in certain colors, in certain types of situations take on a different meaning. Movies, for instance, often place either the protagonist, or the antagonist into one of these classic cars, as a symbol of power. This is especially true of spy-thrillers, and police dramas of the age. This particular car, bearing the Cadillac logo and a styling that is from the late 50's or early 60's, in black, seems perfectly at home in a detective story's stake-out, or some Vegas era mob flick. It is easy to mentally place a well-known Hollywood actor in the hidden driver seat, maybe with a femme fatale taking a drag off a long-filtered cigarette, while watching some back-alley goings on. The Tinseltown reading, even a film noir one, seems rather more pleasant than other possibilities.

          The car has a face-like quality to it; the headlights are like scowling eyes, the grill like bared teeth, the chromed bumper and details like a twisted grin. It reads as powerful, and aggressive, if not a bit angry. In the same frame as the implied violence, and the coming or receding tumultuous event, the car takes this photo and the viewer, to a darker place. The precise nature of that place is yet one more hidden aspect of this piece. Perhaps the still-life characteristic of this photograph alluding to, but not showing, potentially horrible actions is a modern vaitas, and the car's white shining chrome a memento mori; the dark tones and grays drawing attention to the white reflections might act as the warning to remember death, that you too are mortal.^v

Bibliography

da Castelfranco, Giorgione. “The Tempest.” Oil on canvas. ca. 1510 (Galleria dell'Accademia, Venice). In Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 9-17. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

“Charles Harbutt, Departures and Arrivals.” Creativephotography.org. Accessed April 21, 2014. http://www.creativephotography.org/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/charles-harbutt-departures-and-arrivals.

Cole, Thomas. “The Oxbow (View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm).” Oil on canvas, 1836 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 12-12. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Harbutt, Charles. “Car in Alley, Leadville, CO.” Ink-jet print. The University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona, 1971. Gallery label.

Kleiner, Fred. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

West, Benjamin. “Death of General Wolfe.” Oil on canvas, 1771 (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa). In Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 11-10. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Notes

i  “Charles Harbutt, Departures and Arrivals,” Creativephotography.org, accessed April 21, 2014, http://www.creativephotography.org/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/charles-harbutt-departures-and-arrivals.
ii  Charles Harbutt, “Car in Alley, Leadville, CO,” ink-jet print, The University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona, 1971, gallery label.iii  For tenebrism see: Fred Kleiner, Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 591. For chiaroscuro see: Ibid., 580.
iv  For examples see: Giorgione da Castelfranco, “The Tempest,” oil on canvas, ca. 1510 (Galleria dell'Accademia, Venice). In Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 9-17. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 273. Also: Benjamin West, “Death of General Wolfe,” oil on canvas, 1771 (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa). In Kleiner, Figure 11-10, 331. Thomas Cole, “The Oxbow (View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm),” oil on canvas, 1836 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In Kleiner, Figure 12-12, 352.v  Kleiner, 315.