Looking at a Photograph – André Kertész’s 1928 Meudon

Focusing on André Kertész’s 1928 photograph of the Paris suburb, Meudon, I consider a phenomenological means for exploring aesthetic encounter with a photograph. Drawing on my own interpretive work with this image as well as student responses, I delineate a continuum of encounter ranging from partial seeing to deeper aesthetic insight. Making use of the hermeneutic designations suggested by philosopher Henri Bortoft (2012), I identify a lived continuum of aesthetic experience that extends from limited assimilation through a more involved appropriation to an engaged participatory understanding.