Gardenia Centanaro
Arnold Newman, "Kurt Godel"
1956, black and white film.
This is a portrait of mathematician and scientist, Kurt Godel, taken by photographer Arnold Newman in 1956 at Princeton, New Jersey. As I flipped through the book Masterclass by Arnold Newman written by William A. Ewing, I was fascinated by the portraiture of all these iconic painters, scientists, politicians, and celebrities. What is captivating about Arnold Newman's photos is the way he frames the subject by their art, legacy, etc. He is able to define a person in a simple photo.
In contrary to many of his other portraits found in this book, the design itself follows the rule of thirds perfectly. The contrast in this photograph is beautiful in that the positioning of the subject's body is so that there is white on black. He maximizes the contrast between the suit and white background, as well as the blackboard on his white skin. The blackboard serves as a frame within a frame for Kurt Godel's head. He uses Rembrandt lighting on his face which gives an intense tone to the photograph. The subject isn't looking directly at the camera making it as if the photographer isn't there, almost like he is just thinking of an equation and all alone. The empty blackboard fascinated me. I could not understand why it was just blank with no equation. The board was in the center and took up most of the photo. What was its significance? Most of Newman's portraits had the subject next to their life's work or something that defined them yet Godel was just sitting in a specific placement with his head framed at the end of this empty board. I then researched Kurt Godel to learn more about this mysterious and intense man in this picture that caught my eye and found that he is known for his incompleteness theorems. So here is this well known mathematician from Princeton sitting in front of an incomplete black board with his head framed in the board. It's genius because he is framing what is inside Godel's mind- an incompleteness theorem.
Best,
Gardenia
