The only artwork hanging on the wall in our bedroom is this enormous framed black-and-white LIFE Magazine photo. It's of a part of old Route 66 through Arizona, taken by Andreas Feininger sometime at mid-century (this says 1947, our print says 1953).
Sometimes I lie in bed at night and just stare at it. So many fluffy clouds, and the enormous sky stretches on forever across an America that has just won the Big One, was proud and relieved and tired and cocky as hell, an America that was building new homes and highways and stores as fast as we could get to 'em.
I look at the still-rough, all-but-deserted Route 66, which didn't yet know that it would soon be subdivided and twisted and all but erased. I look at the Texaco station, an oasis in an enormous sprawling emptiness, pumping gasoline into country that was becoming ever-more car dependent, for all the good and bad that would bring.
I look at the lone man standing in the road, probably sticking out his thumb for a ride back when that was still a perfectly acceptable way to get around. He travels in a world that didn't yet know that we have more wars to come, wars that won't be wrapped up in victory like WW I and II. That sure, Berlin and Tokyo and Rome wouldn't be our enemies again, but that we'd find other enemies, in other places. A world that didn't know about AIDS, or space travel, or computers, or that two towers still decades away from being built would seem to destroy everything by the way in which they came down.
If you have to have something on your wall, I think this photograph is a good choice. It's good fodder for dreams, an open canvas to have flitting through my mind as each night's light fades.
I hope that someday I can stand in the very spot where this picture was taken. The print only says "Route 66, Arizona," but a Web reference or two pinpoints it as "Seligman, Arizona," and here's at least one person who tried to track down the Texaco station. I'd love to see a photo of what the spot looks like now paired with the famed poster. The poster is mentioned in numerous Route 66 sites, so I'm guessing I'm far from the first person who's wondered about it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Don't know if this is the actual Texaco station, but this website about Seligman features a picture of the "Route 66 Gift Shop" and features what appears to be the original Texaco sign seen in the Life magazine picture...
http://www.theroadwanderer.net/RT66seligman.htm
Heh, my ex-boyfriend has that same print on his bedroom wall. I coveted it.
Ah, how I love art! I identify exactly with the feelings this photo evokes for Gael, and also think it would be interesting to see a photo of the site today paired with the photo of the site back then. But guess what? It looks like that lonely imagery (at least in the 1953 photo) was staged! As far as I can tell, Feininger also made a photo of this site in 1947. (check out http://www.afterimagegallery.com/lifefeiningerroute66.htm vs http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Route-66-Arizona-1947-Posters_i1254271_.htm) They just about look identical. From the poor quality images of these photos I can see on the internet, the only really obvious difference is the clouds. They are quiet different in the two photos. I assume he didn't just use the same photo and redo the clouds. But who knows! In any event, that 1953 photo captures so well the feeling of a moment in time, that it is weird to think that before it was taken the artist was running around setting everything up. What genius!
POSTED TO : http://pcjm.blogspot.com/2005/07/travel-my-way-take-highway-thats-best.html
That last post could not be further from the truth. The two photos that are being referenced are *identical*. The reason these two photos sometimes are erroneously classified as "different" - and the one of the many reasons this photo is breathtaking - is because of the rich contrasty nature of the mid-day Arizona sky. Feininger took the photo with an dark Orange Filter to give the black & white photo's sky a perfect shade of black. Some of the vendors and websites re-selling this classic print have substandard scanning equipment - thus affecting the "shade" of the sky, especially when they only show low-quality thumbnails on the internet. That's why some of the prints look more "grayish" versus the stark black and white that it should be. Look at the size & shape of the clouds in both photos and they are exactly the same.
This is the way it is *supposed* to look: http://msni.pricegrabber.com/product_images/19257000-19257999/19257270_640.jpg
This ISN'T - http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Route-66-Arizona-1947-Posters_i1254271_.htm
Who knows about Feininger's shooting style but I highly doubt he would stage a photograph like this - and I don't know if he would have been able to. He might have sat in the same location for an hour, maybe even an entire day, and shot hundreds of photos of the same exact location, but I doubt it's staged.
If that person who made the comment truly loves "art" - they would actually buy the print and enjoy it themselves rather than making bizzarre claims like that.
In terms of the 1947 vs. 1953 debate - that does puzzle me, but I think I've figured that out. Feininger joined the Life Magazine staff in 1943 as a freelance photographer. I think he took the picture in 1947 but it was not published in Life Magazine until 1953 - probably next to a feature-length article about Route 66 in a 1953 issue of the magazine. Thus, all the Life reprints of the print (such as the one I have) will say "1953". Or maybe it's just a typo when Life Magazine reprinted this in 2001. When looking up a Life website selling this photo right now, they say it was taken in 1947:
http://www.lifephotographs.com/app/products/print.aspx?id=1847
I've had this print framed on the wall in my bedroom and share the same exact sentiments as Gael. The cliche that a "picture is worth a thousand words" is definitely discounting how many words and thoughts it has provoked in my mind.
I also too would love to find the exact place this is now. Unfortunately, Google Earth has not taken any high quality aerial shots over Seligman, so it's tough to tell that way. Also, it looks like Seligman, Arizona has now turn into a Route 66 tourist trap full of kitsch and crap. So maybe it's an image we wouldn't want to see now. Some day, I'll have to take a trip down to Seligman and see for myself.
Route 66 was originally routed on Railroad Avenue through Seligman and then moved to a bigger boulevard which is now "Historic US 66". So, there would have to be a lot of research done to see where the route was in 1947. The Texaco station is a good start...
This colorful Texaco sign may have been taken from the original location - http://www.sightandsound.com/route66/gas.html
It has the same exact post as the one in the 1947 photo.
The "Route 66 Gift Shop" in Seligman could be the location, since it has the Texaco sign outside. However, the Texaco sign is most likely a replica - or even if it's the original, it was probably moved. The structure in that photo looks nothing like the original gas station, motel, or garage in the original photo.
Some day I'll find it...
You certainly don't want to see that site today. It's sickeningly tourist...
http://flickr.com/photos/halonfury/2420708968/
And to the poster who says the two pictures are identical, they are certainly not. Clouds are different, cropping is different, and there are subtle differences between the two... especially the vehicles. I think they were probably two shots from the same day though.
Wow, my ex-boyfriend also had that hanging in his bedroom. I'd stare at it as well - loved it. I never knew the name of the town, but now that I do, I can say that my family and I drove through it just last week on vacation. Heh.
I think I was there in 1953 when I was ten years old, on a driving adventure with my mom on our way out to California. All I know is that when I saw this print in an art shop in Santa Barbara, it registered so deeply inside me that I had to have it. The four-by-five foot print hangs in my home office and there isn't a day when I'm in the room that I don't transform into a ten-year-old on the adventure of a lifetime.
There are indeed multiple photographs of the same scene. In addition to the different cloud formations, the rear end of a bus can be seen clearly in the right lane of the road in one image, and that bus is absent from the other. I have been a huge fan of this scene for years, and now have framed prints of both photos, whether you consider them both 1947 captures or not. Regardless of the change in the area, I'd still love to stand on the ground where such a famous scene was photographed (possibly twice) all those years ago.
Post a Comment