Morris, Wright - Mary Price (essay date 1994)

Mary Price (essay date 1994)

SOURCE: “Wright Morris: Three Photographs,” in Raritan, Vol. 14, No. 2, Fall, 1994, pp. 19-28.

[In the following essay, Price interprets two of Morris's photographs in the context of his writing.]

What can be seen in a photograph of corncobs by Wright Morris, the novelist? The problem might present itself as how to respond to the obvious. This photograph is apparently devoid of associations that would make it interesting, and devoid also of the photographic criteria, the chalk whites and deep blacks, that Morris often explicitly aimed for in his photographic work.

John Szarkowski, Director Emeritus of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, has made familiar a distinction between those photographs that might be said to function as mirrors and those that might be said to function as windows. Thus, in his 1978 book Mirrors and Windows, he argues that

there is a fundamental...

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