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WELLS CATHEDRAL. A SEA OF STEPS (STAIRS TO THE CHAPTER HOUSE AND BRIDGE TO VICAR'S CLOSE), 1903

230 by 185mm (9 by 7¼ in.)

Platinum Print, inscribed 'Stairs' by the photographer in pencil on the reverse,

LITERATURE

For platinum prints of this image in major collections, see:
V. Deren Coke (ed.), 1975, pl. 30 (Collection of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.)
P. Roberts 2001, p. 295 (The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford).
M. Warner Marien 2002, pl. 4.19 (Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York).

NOTE

ONE OF THE GREATEST IMAGES EVER CREATED BY MEANS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

'The beautiful curve of the steps on the right is for all the world like the surge of great wave that will presently break and subside into smaller ones like those at the top of the picture. It is one of my most imaginative lines it has been my good fortune to try and depict, this superb mounting of the steps...'
(Frederick H. Evans, 1903, quoted in M. Harker 1979, p. 97)

The 'Sea of Steps' is a true icon of photography. Reproduced again and again in the half-century since the history of photography began to be written, the composition has lost none of its power to delight the eye. It is a classic work of 'pure photography'.

The meaning of pure photography (images that are not manipulated in the darkroom) has been distorted over time. The term was co-opted by those who sought to identify modernism as the most significant aesthetic movement of the early twentieth century. However, the radical compositional design (produced using a tele-photo lens) was not meant to be privileged at the expense of meaning. Instead, it was the means by which 'the spiritual harmonies of architecture' were to be evoked; (see A.K. Hammond's article in M. Weaver [ed.] 1989, pp. 243-259.)

The photographer's commitment to unmanipulated imagery did not prevent him from doing minor retouching on his negatives and prints. The negative for this image (NMPFT, Bradford) was at some point retouched in the two areas above the first archway; this print is one of those made after the retouching was done. Each of the extant prints is also cropped slightly differently.