Vines

1965

Vines, 1965. Harold M. Null (American, 1916-). Gelatin silver print; image: 42.9 x 51.4 cm (16 7/8 x 20 1/4 in.); matted: 61 x 71.1 cm (24 x 28 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Photography in the Fine Arts 1965.334 Photographs express a photographer’s vision, materialized through choices of subject matter, camera angle, cropping, editing, and other factors. Here the artist chose to represent a site from a specific viewpoint in black and white, resulting in an image that creates the illusion of two-dimensional pattern. Vines depicts bare grapevines creeping over rows of trellises in a winter landscape. From a distance, the image appears to have dark geometric and organic lines over a white background. The closer we look, the clearer the subject becomes. Harold M. Null was born in Pennsylvania, but he spent most of his adult life in Italy.