In the Box-Horizontal

During most of her life, Ruth Bernhard was interested in depicting the female nude. In this iconic image, one of Bernhard’s most widely recognized and a seminal work of twentieth-century photography, her masterful handling of light and form is put on display. The seemingly sleeping model is framed within a box, emphasizing the horizontal element of the composition and contrasting rectangular regularity with the flow of organic lines. Her left arm breaks away from this constraining enclosure, however, and reaches out of the box in a more comfortable stretch. The play of light and shadow enhances the contours of the body while diffusing the perception of the box, and the body seems to disappear, receding into deep shadows.