Infanta [Hardcover]

Ralph Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 1995

Photographer Ralph Gibson's tribute to his two passions: photography and women.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The female nude has long been an important subject for photographer Gibson, but in earlier books, his nudes appeared as elements in sequences of all kinds of images. With Infanta, Gibson abandons the sequencing, presenting instead a collection of big, rather simplified black-and-white images. Like Lee Friedlander in his Nudes (1991), in middle age Gibson expresses an intense fascination with the bodies of young women. Whereas Friedlander used the camera to awkwardly describe specific details, Gibson uses his to idealize beautiful body fragments. Gibson's high-contrast, grainy printing style and abstract compositions have hardly changed in two decades. Alexandra Anderson-Spivy's accompanying essay perceptively responds to Gibson's work, but Mary Gaitskill's vulgar afterword (the memoir of a stripper) seems jarringly inappropriate to the idealism of the photographs. Gretchen Garner

Product Details

• Hardcover: 119 pages
• Publisher: Takarajima Books, Inc.; First Edition edition (October 4, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188348913X
• ISBN-13: 978-1883489137
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 10.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #941,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Striking black and white photos., December 1, 2000

By 

bryan12603 (Poughkeepsie, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Infanta (Hardcover)

This is a beautiful and intriguing collection of black and white photographs. The subjects are all female (if you count one baby, of indeterminate gender), and are frequently nude. If you are open minded, I think you will find many (perhaps all) of these pictures erotic -- whatever your sexual orientation. However, this is art, not mediocre porn.

The images are generally fragments of women's bodies: a breast, a foot, a chin, a face, or just an eye. This makes it sound as if the women are objectified, but the photos always seem to invite us to revel in the beauty of the form. I, at least, feel that the pictures produce a sort of tender admiration (an "erotic" gaze, in the proper Greek sense of the term).

I disagreed with the reviewer who found Mary Gaitskill's Afterword "vulgar." (But then, Gaitskill tends to polarize readers.) Her brief essay explores her own feelings and experiences with how she and we view the naked female form, including its beauties, power, and vulnerabilities.

I found this a moving book; perhaps you will too.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid Celebration of the Female Nude from Gibson, August 24, 2004

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Infanta (Hardcover)

For decades Ralph Gibson has worked in available light, using his hand held Leica rangefinder camera to produce work which transcends traditional fine art documentary photography, creating abstract, occasionally surrealistic images. Here in "Infanta", Gibson continues with his ongoing fascination with the female nude, but by depicting portions of the body; an eye, a breast, the torso, and so forth. What he has wrought are beautiful images which are a visual celebration of the female body. And these are stylized images rendered via the use of relatively coarse grain, high speed black and white film. Admittedly Gibson doesn't cover new ground artistically here, but instead builds on an already impressive body of work.

5.0 out of 5 stars Book Nitty-Gritty, June 30, 2011

By 

Theseus "theseus" (US of A) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Infanta (Hardcover)

A handsome volume from Takarajima Books: black cloth over hardback boards with a sewn binding. Released with dustjacket.

119 pp. 2.5 pounds. Almost all b&w photography, one image per page.