Rue Grit

With summer’s looser schedule, the Getty Center provides Valley residents with a getaway from suburban realities. That other world at the moment is early 20th century Paris as seen through the eyes of photographer Eugene Atget.

If the conventional impression of summer art exhibits involves splashy colors and aesthetics that are easy on the cerebrum, the Getty Center show runs against type. Atget’s prints are small and fragile-looking, the details delicate. But once you adapt to the Atget mind-set, the art itself is illuminating.

“The Man in the Street: Eugene Atget in Paris” is steeped in the celebration of time and place. Atget, who patiently shot scenes in his hometown from 1897 to 1927, first set out to create images to sell to painters, who could then consider those images--documents pour artistes--from the comfort of their studios.

We see an example in “Kiosk and Street Fair, Fete de Vaugirard,” used as a source for a painting by Maurice Utrillo. The composition is almost identical except Utrillo added some people to the scene.

More important, Atget managed to capture the beauty of his environment and elevate commonplace scenes to the echelon of art. Suddenly, storefronts and their contents became fodder for the joint causes of art, anthropology and history.

Atget’s concern was not so much with people, but with places and things. His famed images include elegantly composed shots of mannequins in windows, a luggage store and a secondhand bookshop. He shot elegant corners of the city, from lavish park spaces to architectural showpieces such as the quirky House on Place du Claire, built circa 1799 and photographed in 1903.

Still, his most striking “architectural” images are from grungy byways. His affectionate images of a tinsmith’s shop, tucked away in an alley, and a ragpicker’s hut, are inspired views of spaces off the beaten path.

When human subjects appear, they are part of the street, from a lampshade vendor to a matter-of-fact prostitute in a Versailles doorway. Man in the street, indeed.

We are all well aware of the time-honored beauty of Paris, bolstered by its exaggerated self-image. Atget’s imagery helps, in some way, to further prop up that Parisian ego. But his essential approach could be transported to Pittsburgh or Van Nuys. The idea was to use the new medium of photography as a vehicle for seeing the world around him in a fresh light, capturing reality in split-second visions.

The notion is transferable to artists in many fields. What isn’t is Atget’s uncanny and compassionate eye.

The Atget exhibition is accompanied by two other shows. One reveals recent additions to the Getty photography collection, including David Hockney’s snapshot mosaic “Pearblossom Highway” and Polaroid work from artists as diverse as Walker Evans, Chuck Close and Lucas Samaras.

In an outer gallery, the “man in the street” theme continues with work by famed photographers, such as Berenice Abbott and Garry Winogrand, who in the mid-1960s photographed women walking near Hollywood and Vine. As in other grab-and-shoot images by Winogrand from the ‘60s, the camera is slightly tilted, with gleaming, sunny backlighting. Atget would approve.

BE THERE

“The Man in the Street: Eugene Atget in Paris,” through Oct. 8 at the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. Hours: Tuesday-Wednesday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Thursday-Friday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (310) 440-7300.