Customer Reviews

Henri Cartier Bresson Landscape & Townsc

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... the "thick black surround" ... is something Cartier-Bresson insisted on. It's present in nearly all of his original prints. It's the result of filing back the negative carrier to show a small amount of the film border surrounding the image, and signifies that the image hasn't been cropped. His "decisive moment" theory required that the image not be altered in any way -- that the whole photograph be created in the moment in which it was taken. There are a few instances in which his prints don't have the border, and that always indicates that he cropped, usually for some remedial reason. The famous "Behind the Gare St. Lazare" photo of the man jumping across the puddle is a case in point. The original negative (shown in John Loengard's "Celebrating the Negative") is blurred on the left side because C-B shot through an opening in a wooden fence, and some of it intruded. It's an exeception.

The border is easy to miss in framed C-B photographs because it's very thin (he wanted it to be unobtrusive, in contrast to the more modern fashion for a rough-edged, thick black border) and often runs right at the edge of the frame or the window mat. Some exhibitors mat over it. But it's almost always there.

As to the new book -- I agree that the print quality isn't up to the ultimate best, but it's not at all bad, and the collection pulls together some of C-B's work that isn't seen often. Pretty nicely done.

given the quality of other monographs by this publisher, the beauty of HCB's landscapes etc., and especially the price of this book, one has every right to expect something special. Sadly this book is far from special. Each illustration has a thick black surround which, frankly makes it impossible to concentrate on, and enjoy the image content. The quality of reproduction is average, somewhat lacking the sparkle of other monographs. Still worse are the vast acreages of blank white pages. What is going on here ??, the number of images could have been doubled and more, quite easily. Information on location, and context are frustratingly sparse - I do not know if HCB did keep a log of his locations, but it would be nice to have rather more than, say, "Japan". This rich and fascinating area of HCB's work deserves a proper presentation, rather than just something that seems to have been 'cobbled together', as this has.