The Positive, the Bad and the Graceful: The Way the Great Photographer Avedon Documented Ageing

Richard Avedon loathed ageing – but he lived within it, laughed about it, observed it compassionately as well as, most importantly, accepting its inevitability. “I’m a geezer,” he declared while relatively young during his sixties. During his artistic journey, he made innumerable images of aging's effects upon people's faces, and its unavoidable nature. For a man initially, and possibly in public perception still, primarily linked to photographs showcasing vitality and aesthetics, liveliness and delight – a young woman twirling her dress, jumping across water, enjoying arcade games late at night in Paris – an equal portion exists of his oeuvre devoted to the aged, wrinkled, and knowledgeable.

The Intricacy in Human Nature

His friends often noted that he was the most youthful individual present – yet he had no desire to be the youngest person in the room. That represented, even if not directly hurtful, a commonplace observation: what Avedon sought was to be the most multifaceted figure there. He loved contrasting feelings and paradox in one photograph, or model, rather than a grouping at the poles of sentiment. He admired pictures comparable to the celebrated Leonardo piece which contrasts the profile of a beautiful youth with an elderly man having a strong jaw. Thus, in a beautiful pairing of images depicting cinematic auteurs, initially one might perceive the aggressive John Ford set against the gentle Renoir. The director's twisted smirk and flamboyant, angry eye patch – a patch can seem aggressive in its persistence on forcing your recognition of the loss of the eye – viewed alongside the gentle humanist glance from Renoir, who appears initially like a sage French artist-saint of the same kind as Georges Braque.

However, observe more closely, and the two directors show matching combativeness and compassion, the boxer-like snarl on their faces opposing the light in their gaze, and Renoir's uneven stare is as calculating as it is saintly. Ford might be challenging us (very Americanly), however, Renoir is evaluating us. The simple, opposing stereotypes regarding humanism are betrayed or deepened: people aren't made into filmmakers by kindness exclusively. Ambition, skill and determination are portrayed here too.

A Battle Opposing Conventions

Avedon fought against portrait stereotypes, including the cliches of ageing, and whatever appeared just sanctimonious or overly idealized displeased him. Opposition fueled his creative work. On occasion, it was challenging for those he photographed to believe that he didn't intend to diminish them or betraying them when he expressed to them that he valued what they concealed just like what they proudly showed. This explained partly The photographer had trouble, and didn't fully succeed, in confronting his personal process of growing old – sometimes portraying himself as overly furious in a manner that didn't suit him, or alternatively too rigid in a style that was too isolated, perhaps because the essential paradox within his own personality remained unseen by him as his models' were to themselves. The sorcerer could perform spells for his subjects but not for himself.

The genuine opposition in his character – from the solemn and strict student of human accomplishment he embodied and the ambitious, intensely competitive presence inside the New York scene people often labeled him – remained hidden from him, as our real contradictions are to all of us. A film from his later years depicted him dreamily strolling the cliffs of Montauk by his residence, deep in contemplation – a place in fact he never went, remaining inside talking on the phone to companions, guiding, comforting, devising strategies, taking pleasure.

Genuine Muses

The senior figures who understood how of being dual-natured – or even multiple personas – acted as his real muses, and his ability for managing to communicate their multitudinous selves in a highly concentrated and apparently brief solitary photograph stays awe-inspiring, exceptional in the annals of photographic portraiture. He is often at his best when facing difficult individuals: the prejudiced poet Pound howls with the sheer pain of being, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor appear as a scared alarmed Beckett-like pair. Even the people he admired were elevated by his perspective for their inconsistencies: Stravinsky gazes toward us with an even stare that appears almost pained and strategic, both a man of surly genius and an individual of strategy and drive, a genius and a rug merchant.

The poet seems like a wise sage, countenance showing concern, and a quiet comic taking a clumsy stroll, a traveler in downtown New York wearing slippers in snowy conditions. (“I woke up and it was snowing, and I desired to photograph Auden in it Dick explained once, and he phoned up the presumably bemused but willing poet and requested to photograph him.) His photograph of his longtime companion Truman Capote presents him as considerably brighter than he let on and more malicious than he acknowledged. Regarding the older Dorothy Parker, Avedon did not admire her spirit less as her looks faded, and, registering accurately her decline, he emphasized her bravery.

Overlooked Portraits

A photograph I previously ignored shows Harold Arlen, the celebrated music writer who married blues and jazz to Broadway melody. He belonged to a group of individuals {whom Avedon understood unconditionally|that A