Incantation

Anne W. Brigman

1905 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

The ethereal woman in this photograph steadies herself on the side of a mountain, stretching her body and hands up to the sky. In March 1969 a version of this compelling image was featured in the first issue of the Metropolitan Museum Art Bulletin devoted to photography, appearing with the following quote from sixty years earlier: "In Mrs. Brigman’s work, the human is not an alien, has not yet become divorced by sophistication from the elemental grandeur of nature; rather it serves as a sort of climactic point, wherein all that nature holds of sheer beauty, of terror or mystery achieves its fitting crescendo."

Artist

Anne W. Brigman

Date

1905

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933