Rue du Jour

This gritty photograph of what had once been a grand mansion and an inspiring church conveys the density and decay of a metropolitan center. In the foreground, the facade of the 1625 manor appears to crumble; in the background, the effects of urban industrialization have blackened the formerly pristine church of Saint-Eustache. The short focal point of Eugène Atget's lens compressed the architecture so that the grimy elements of the two buildings are difficult to separate. Cutting across the foreground at a dynamic angle is the rue du Jour, enlivened by the shadowy presence of a woman adjacent to the tilted barrow.