The Pillar

A pillar stuck in the ground beside a stream in a flat, open landscape, trees and houses visible in the distance, under a vast sky. That is the backdrop for all of Stephen Gill's photographs in this book. We see the same landscape in spring and summer, in autumn and winter, we see it in sun and rain, in snow and wind. Yet there is not the slightest monotony in these photographs, because in almost every one there is a bird, and each of these birds opens a unique moment in time. We see something that has never happened before and will never happen again. The fact that it takes place in the midst of a landscape characterized by repetition, in which time is cyclical, establishes a sharp existential dynamic: on the one hand, everything has happened before, there is nothing new under the sun; on the other hand, each moment is unique and bears the stamp of the miracle: what happens happens only once and never again.