Walker Evans and the Beauties of the Common Tool
This past weekend, I attended a stunning exhibit of Walker Evans photographs. Evans is perhaps best known for his Depression Era images of sharecroppers in the deep south.
e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Al...ughs_print.jpg
I was fascinated to discover his innovative depiction of beauty in common everyday items like street signs and.....hand tools. I stared at his photo of a crate opener and whispered to my wife: "See Honey, perhaps I'm not insane after all."
Here's a link:
http://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/aa/tools/a.htm
Evans' prose were often as memorable as his photos. I loved this caption from his 1955 Fortune magazine article:
"Among low-priced, factory-produced goods, none is so appealing to the senses as the ordinary hand tool. Hence, a hardware store is a kind of offbeat museum show for the man who responds to good, clear "undesigned" forms. The Swedish steel pliers pictured above, with their somehow swanlike flow, and the objects on the following pages, in all their tough simplicity, illustrate this. Aside from their functions--though they are exclusively wedded to function--each of these tools lures the eye to follow its curves and angles, and invites the hand to test its balance.
Who would sully the lines of the tin-cutting shears on page 105 with a single added bend or whorl? Or clothe in any way the fine naked impression of heft and bite in the crescent wrench on page 107? To be sure, some design-happy manufacturers have tampered with certain tool classics; the beautiful plumb bob, which used to come naively and solemnly shaped like a child's top, now looks suspiciously like a toy space ship, and is no longer brassy. But not much can be done to spoil a crate opener, that nobly ferocious statement in black steel, as may be seen on page 104. In fact, almost all the basic small tools stand, aesthetically speaking, for elegance, candor, and purity." --Walker Evans, Fortune, 1955
