Landscape, Sicily, Italy

In this photograph taken in the south of Italy, Paul Strand framed a broad vista so that it became an intimate and self-contained world. The thin trees and their leafless branches in the foreground organize the image, tying the stone farm buildings, pathways, and cultivated plots together in a dense pattern of the organic and geometric. This view is a mediation on the potential for harmonious relationships between man and nature. Strand saw this condition as a potent alternative to the rapid changes brought on by the modern world in the mid-20th century. He had a humanistic interest in using photography to explore the distinctive character of places that he viewed as uncorrupted by industrial culture. Strand was interested in heightening our sense of reality, often favoring tightly composed views to intensify his subject’s visual significance.