Walker Evans: The beauty of the Common Tool
What is denoted & Connoted?
The work denotes large tools placed in the centre of the frame and showing huge power. The tools are all presented to look bland but showing detail of the tools showing what they are all about but making them come together. The meaning behind the tools is designed to show that the Pound-land value tools can also look beautiful when being presented and this works for the viewers. The work communicates as basic tools are positioned in a certain way the use of the captions shows the tools in the correct size with the tools official name and the price that it will cost you from the shop at the time of the shoot.
How are you affected as a viewer?
When looking at the work you will automatically look at the oversized tools due to the way the work has been positioned to the viewer. The tools do not make me happy or sad when looking at it normal viewpoint as they are dull and boring as this does not stand out to the viewer normally.
What makes this work significant to the project?
The work is significant to the project as I am planning on using the underlying theme that the tools all have all been presented in a way that they all look dull and boring to the eye. The background has been done to be basic with the tools not coming together to make it look interesting to the eye and that is what he had set out to work on. I like the composition of how the tools are with them all being placed in a vertical aspect ratio with them all being central with what I think he was trying to do is to make the tools look boring.
The text from the tools
Among low-priced, factory-produced goods, none is so appealing to the senses as the ordinary hand tool. Hence, a hardware store is a kind of offbeat museum show for the man who responds to good, clear “undesired” forms. The Swedish steel pliers pictured above, with their somehow swanlike flow, and the objects on the following pages, in all their tough simplicity, illustrate this. Aside from their functions-though, they are exclusively wedded to function each of these tools lures the eye to follow its curves and angles, and invites the hand to test its balance.
Who would sully the lines of the tin-cutting shears on page 105 with a single added bend or whorl? Or clothe in any, way the fine naked impression of heft and bite in the crescent wrench on page 107? To be sure, some design-happy manufacturers have tampered with certain tool classics; the beautiful plumb bob, which used to come naively and solemnly shaped like a child’s top, now looks suspiciously like a toy space ship and is no longer brassy. But not much can be done to spoil a crate opener, that nobly ferocious statement in black steel, as may be seen on page 104. In fact, almost all the basic small tools stand, aesthetically speaking, for elegance, candour, and purity. -W.E...
My View Point on the text
My Viewpoint the text is that it criticises the way people will look at tools and how the manufacturers are wanting to make the tools look sexy to the viewer. The ideology from the tools is that we need to make them interesting and beautiful and the way he has presented the tools. The way he has produced the work is designed to make the tools look boring to put it as F you to the viewer to get to understand the meaning of boring tools. I think the text tells all your need to know to show them together.
What ideas (or visual styles) will you take forward to think about in your work?
The visual styles that I am planning on taking forward are the way the tools have been presented to the viewers by adding colour to the background for the tools and the high vis jacket. The use of keeping the formatting together they work to stand out. I am not going to keep the boring background but make it stylish for this to stand out to the viewer. My work will be different from this work so I will use the setup and make it fun and contemporary.
Who is the intended audience?
The intended audience was for readers of the Frieze magazine and was Evans’s trying to put a middle finger to the fancy commercial industry. The tools are not designed to have the contemporary feel that the work has shown is at is designed to make the tools look boring and basic to make the viewer look at it.
What context have you seen the work in?
The context in that I have seen this in is in the essay by David Campany in print and online, and the tools from the internet. The tools are designed to go in a magazine as it has been mentioned before. The tools are shown to be boring and tactile so the viewer might go out and purchase the tools to match it all up so it can stand out and it would make an interesting reaction to the viewer, this would only work at the original size when it was published in the magazine.
Strength’s & Weakness
The strengths of the work have been done to show the tools being big and powerful to the viewer. The work shows the power that you can get from the tools with it being overpowered. The weaknesses of this do not stand out to the viewer in a positive way as they look boring and they do not have any colour which does not have the themes and it allows me to stand out the idea to showing it all.
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