Entrance to the Garden

This garden view is another of White's virtuoso Pictorialist renditions in which form and light are expressed with a limited range of tonalities. Employing gum bichromate, a process that allows for a dense, painterly texture, he permeated his print with a mood of reverie and contemplation. A boy lounges at the entrance to a garden that likely represents experience. Enclosed and sheltered by darkness, the boy's form is subtly outlined by the light falling on him like a theatrical spotlight. White suggests a play between the conscious and unconscious, between the inner and outer world, between being and becoming.