Customer Reviews

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image & the World: A Retrospective

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective by Peter Galassi, Robert Delpire" is an essential purchase for anyone with more than a passing interest in photography.

As the images and essays in this retrospective of HCB's work make clear, Cartier-Bresson invented 35 mm photography as a visual form. What studying, or even browsing through this massive collection makes clear is that despite being known as a "photographer," Cartier-Bresson is not being disengeuous when he eschews that descriptive: he is not a photographer; he is an artist whose primary tool for about 50 years was a camera. But he wasn't "taking pictures," he was creating art, and happened to use a camera to do it.

A careful examination of this collection of images leaves one with the impression is that the reason HCB has had such an enormous impact on the history of photography in many different forms - including "street photography," "photojournalism," and "documentary photography," is the fact that he is one of the great artists of the 20th century.

Even if you think you know all Cartier-Bresson's work; even if you own all the books in which most of these photos originally appeared over the past 50 years, "Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective" is a book worth owning because of the overview it provides, and because of the insightfulness of several of the essays included.

This is a wonderful book. I can think of no better volume about the life work of a photographer that this one of Henri Cartier-Bresson. The book has 602 illustrations consisting of M. Bresson's photographs, his paintings and drawings and family photographs. The family photographs are among the most interesting since we have collected, in one volume, probably all of the photographs taken of the photographer (including an interesting seated portrait of M. Bresson as a prisoner of war). There are some excellent essays by the editors about the photographer and the formulation of the "decisive moment" and his work but the photographs are allowed to speak for themselves.

The photographs are placed in the order M. Bresson published them. Each section of photographs is preceded by a quote that has a bearing on the pictures and a small picture of the cover of the original book is included with the photographs. Each picture is simply captioned with the place or circumstance and the year it was taken. Many of the images are famous and there are also many discoveries that will enthrall the view. The photographs are reproduces in different sizes and some are smaller than I would like but the overwhelming majority are nicely laid out and grouped. There are excellent appendices that give publication information on M. Bresson's photographs and a timeline of his life.

In short, this is a marvelous book that anyone interested in photography must have. The comment by another reviewer concerning the size of the volume was no problem for me: my bookshelves can accommodate any size of book. But even if I had no space on my shelves, I would make room for this volume.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, a man who elevated photography to an art form, is known for successfully capturing "decisive," but elusive, moments on film - photographs taken at the instant when "visual harmony and human significance coalesce." His famous photograph of a man jumping over a puddle ("Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1932") illustrates this concept perfectly. Perhaps Cartier-Bresson's unique gift for combining the plastic arts with the images he saw through the camera's lens was acquired through his early training as a painter in his native France.

A renowned photojournalist, he began his career in 1931 and purchased his first Leica in 1932. He was one of the first to shoot in the 35 mm format, and was an innovator of the "street photography" which was to influence generations of photographers. During his decades long career he worked all over the world and photographed such luminaries as Matisse, Picasso, Coco Chanel, Truman Capote, and Gandhi. His interest in the visual arts also extended to cinema - he made films with Jean Renoir, Jacques Becker and André Zvoboda and a documentary on Republican Spain (1937). In 1947 Cartier-Bresson co-founded the photographic cooperative Magnum along with fellow photographers Robert Capa, George Rodger, David Seymour and Bill Vandivert.

Cartier-Bresson retired from photography in 1973 to return to painting, and his first love, drawing. He once said in an interview, "Photography is a sketchbook. Drawing is meditation."

Henri Cartier-Bresson died on August 3, 2004 in Paris. He left behind a photographic record of the world, mid-20th century. He will probably be best remembered, however, as an artist who had tremendous insight into ordinary people and the extraordinary ability to capture fleeting emotion on their faces. Some of his best photographs, I think, include: girls in Bali preparing to dance; a prisoner thrusting a fist and leg out of his cell door; children peeping over the Berlin Wall - in fact, all his spontaneous pictures of children; old priests awaiting midnight Mass in Italy; the funeral of an old Kabuki actor, a captivating portrait of Henri Matisse; lovers kissing at a Paris cafe; and exquisite landscapes and cityscapes, worldwide.

"Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective" was published in honor of the artist's 95th birthday. An enormous selection of photographs is offered here, more than 600 reproductions, film stills, paintings and drawings on fine heavy art paper, taken over a period of fifty years. These images represent the best of his life's work. Fascinating essays by art and photography critics are included in the volume.

Henri Cartier-Bresson once wrote. "A velvet hand, a hawk's eye - these we should all have." This man was blessed with both the hand and the eye. The photographs reproduced here are the result of that gift.
JANA

No words are needed for Cartier-Bresson. He is one of the foundations of modern photography.
As for the book, it has two very annoying problems.
1) Some of the best Cartier-Bresson pictures are printed across both pages nearly destroying the amazing composition of the pictures.
2) Some of other great pictures are printed in a 3x3 size, great for passport pictures but useless to the study of this great photographer.

The book has a very good compilation of the photographer's work, unfortunately it has these two issues which render the book above average but far-away from being GREAT!!!

I am a big fan of Cartier-Bresson's photography, so this review could be considered a little biased. This is a great book -- lots of Cartier-Bresson's photos (all my favourites, and there are many), well-printed, with just enough text to add some substance to the book without overwhelming the images. There are even a bunch of photos of Cartier-Bresson at the end for those who are curious what he looks like. A few of his sketches/paintings and some information on his films are also included, which may interest some. The only downside is the book weighs a ton, and is an awkward size that doesn't fit in my bookcase. ;-) Highly recommended.

"I have never been interested in photography," asserts the greatest image-maker in the history of the medium, and he put his camera away, thirty years ago, in order to focus on drawing, his first love. Perhaps Cartier-Bresson was more interested in the act of seeing than recording an image on film, but this massive portfolio of images from the 1930s through the early 1970s shows his mastery of composition, his fusion of candor and humanity, and his gift for capturing the decisive moment. It's superbly produced, and every architect will delight in his brilliant sense of shadow and light, and his interweaving of figures and buildings-notably in the opening spread of the church of San Francisco in Ranchos de Taos. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

A great retrospective of his incredible photography. I just got it for Xmas and LOVE it!

The book is a testimony to the capabilities of Henri Cartier-Bresson as a photographer. With limited equipment, a camera and only one lens, he managed to capture an amazing range of emotions and phenomenon. Cartier-Bresson's work, which is amply documented in this book, also provides an example of "available light" photography.

My one complaint is the quality of reproduction of the photos is somewhat poor, though I am not sure whether this could have been remedied by the publishers

I put off buying this book as long as I could and eventually I did, having in the meantime manhandled book store copies. It is difficult to get too much HCB and this offers a lot in one package.

I take minor exception to HCB as elevating photography to art -- he is more often described as someone who turned his hobby into an art form, albeit it was a hobby informed by artisitic sensibility. The incomparable Eastman House in Rochester has examples that go back to the earliest days of photography as art. But the 20th century was crowded with photographic art. HCB's eminence in the PostWar recognition of Photography as Art by such places as MOMA is a given. (he preferred the small a).

The number of photographs included is for me in this book is an asset, providing a broad look at the stupendous body of work done by HCB during his long career.

In the 1950s and early 60s, the greatest influence on young photojournalists came from "This Is War" by David Douglas Duncan, published in 1951 and "The Decisive Moment" in 1952, which took its title from HCB's text. The Verve edition used a different title, i.e. "Images à la sauvette" which translates to "pictures on the run."

Robert Capa suggested to HCB that he call himself a photojournalist and later the two would join in forming Magnum, the first and greatest photo agency. From that came the inaccurate sometime sobriquet of " Father of Photojounalism."

HCB's work received the earliest important recognition from Americans and his exhibitions and books always received a warm reception. Had he been an American, his political views might have ensnared him in the hysteria of the 50s.His individual perspective was as strong as one might expect from someone who spent three years in a Nazi prison. After the war's bitter experiene, HCB's work became much more humanist.

In France his acceptance as an artist does not fully reflect the merits of his work. The US has accepted the work of HCB and Eugene Atget at a level that the French art establishment did not -- although he did have support that matters. One reason cited is that HCB objected to the "fetishistic attitude" toward original prints.

HCB's darkroom work was done by skilled technicians. Berenice Abbot promoted the merit of Atget's work with her own prints from the thousands of negatives she brought back to the US.

That is a point on which HCB was entirely right. Some earlier vintage prints of his work is not all that good. HCB recognized that for his genre, a skilled darkroom craftsman could both satisfy his esthetic judgments and replicate his work over and over. What he could control was how many "authorized" images there were.

A gigantic HCB exhiition at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France several years ago was pectacular -- the BNF chosen because it would gladly work with HCB and his wife. That was a rare opportunity that had to be taken. You don't think much about the print, but rather what an eye HCB has for the moment.

There are certainly photographers who marry their eye to theirr work in the darkroom. HCB did not see it that way.

This book is perfect for me, but others less familiar with HCB's work might be better off with one of his books on a theme, e.g. Paris, etc.

there are so many wonderful photographs in this book ,you can find out what you want to save from Henri Cartier-Bresson, and you can also find out what he,the brilliant man, wants to show the whole world with his camera,with his heart.you must be love it.