Egg and Shell (Solarization)
卵と貝殻（ソラリゼーション）
- Birth Year
- 1890
- Death Year
- 1976
- Date
- 1931 (printed in later years)
- Technique, Material, Format
- gelatin silver print
- Dimension
- 30.0 x 21.5 cm
- Category
- Photograph or Moving Image by ForeignPhotographer/Artist
- Inventory Number
- 82-PHF-239
And just like that, an egg appears from a shell! Well, it looks like that, doesn’t it? With this unexpected juxtaposition, two objects are each made to appear somehow different. Surrealism was particularly good at employing this kind of strategy of surprise to encourage new values and new worldviews.
Both of the objects here have white shells, yet one is for wrapping and protecting new life, while the other is a kind of skeleton. A symmetry has been created with the symbol of life (the egg) being held in the left hand and the symbol of death (the shell) being held in the right. Even the solarization technique that has been employed (by which strong light is applied to the negative during developing) acts to partially reverse the image’s areas of light and dark. You could say that the various conflicts and coexistences that constitute our world have been captured in a single photograph.
(SAKAMOTO Kyoko)