[Boat Houses, Wolf River, Gaspé]

Paul Strand

1936

Gelatin silver print

J. Paul Getty Museum

Two wooden boathouses are shown on stilts, connected by a wooden walkway. A flagpole stands tall against a cloudy sky. In this view of Gaspé there is not the grand sense of perspective or vastness of space found in The Beach—Percé, Gaspé, Quebec (84.XP.208.233), but there is the same attention to the internal arrangement of the image and the interaction of key elements through the exploitation of line, shape, and mass as they are translated into black-and-white forms. Strand is approaching his photography as Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) did his painting: the structure of the composition and the organization of elements within that composition define the subject. Indeed, this print recalls Cézanne's painting Houses in Provence ( https://www.nga.gov/colle