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B\ GARTIER-BRESSON
PHOTOGRAPHS
BY CARTIER-BRESSON
W i t h Introductions By
Lincoln Kirstein
Beaumont Newhall
G r o s s m a n Publishers
T o m y friends.
H. C.-B.
Over the last thirty years, the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson has
resulted in a body of work unique in the history of this craft, not alone
in kind but in quality. Apart from the fact that he is responsible for
more individual memorable images than any other photographer in his
epoch, his attitude towards his art. for with him it is also and most
definitely an art as well as a craft-skill in reportage, is based on a philo-
sophy at once traditional, logical and exemplary. From his personal
working rationale we may learn much of the precise limitations and
extensive possibilities of camera usage. C a r t i e r - B r e s s o n ^ own method
comprises a principia photographica by which many o t h e r pictures and
photographers may be considered. It is a legible, t r a n s m i t t a b l e analytical
means which, focused on ephemeral material, nevertheless has its
p e r m a n e n t steady support.
T h e r e have been confusions about the valid function of photography
ever since its invention. As a visual approach, it has been identified or
called into competition with drawing, painting and illustration. It has
been of use to painters, while some of its practitioners have considered
themselves as competing with m a s t e r s of plastic line and color. It
certainly has been of inestimable use to scientists and historians ; the
vividness of old photographs has no substitute for candor, even accepting
the f r a g m e n t a r y or accidental nature of their frame. But the service of
the c a m e r a has its own set of characteristic values and services and
Cartier-Bresson has never been confused in his own mind as to what
these were. His clarity of purpose and direct simplicity of vision does
m u c h to distinguish an identity for the camera's unique employment.
It is his pervading philosophy towards his work that is important r a t h e r
than any mastery in formal or manual dexterity. His mind and eye are
always o n the point of focused historical discovery, the X that marks
the spot where time and space cross in a potential explosion, which can
illuminate some facet of our behavior in our time and our places, over
t h r e e decades, in very many areas of the world. He works f r o m Mind
and Eye, but his everything is aimed at a Here and Now. Space, for
him, is where he can manage to anticipate or triangulate a spot f r o m
which he can press his s h u t t e r ; time, for him, is the chosen instant in
a continuum of p r e p a r a t o r y m o m e n t s when he can finally press. The
original talent, or source or control of the choice of a Here and Now, is
the quality of taste implicit in his energy, or curiosity in the historical
or psychological material, a curiosity which is an insatiable greed for
seeing and trying to know. Photography, to him, is merely one m e a n s
of discovery, in his case an implementation of his gifts for intellectual
analysis. Ultimately, this energy is the capacity for a comprehension of
history, of life in time, of the time in our place, rather than any special
aesthetic, visual or plastic sensibility, which makes his best shots
unforgettable. The historian a t t e m p t s to grasp all accident and incident
significant of the great circumstances of a chosen epoch. W i t h Cartier-
Bresson, it is his own. But his peculiar distinction is that he knows
history is a continuum, that the points in time at which he feels his
fingers can press, have been preceded by all the factors that make some
crucial m o m e n t , of many m o m e n t s , decisive. He presupposes as much
of t h e past as is philosophically useful, the relevancy of which intensifies
its culminating significance.
He also carries at times in his hip pocket the body of a second Leica M-3
c a m e r a , into which he can fit any of the three lenses. Thus he can work
with two different kinds of film, one in each camera. If color is t o be
shot, the extra body is loaded with color film.
Although he has produced m a s t e r f u l color pictures, Cartier-Bresson does
not care for color. He feels t h a t , working as he insists directly with
reality, the chance for control, with present technical development of
color photography, is negligible.
His film is processed by technicians who follow his instructions. He feels
that his time should be spent with his camera and not in the darkroom.
Each film contains 36 1 X l i inch negatives. As a proof, all of t h e m
are first printed without enlarging on a single 8 X 10 inch sheet of
photographic paper. These fr contact sheets " of images the size of
postage stamps he then studies intensely through a magnifying glass.
He marks the f r a m e s to be enlarged. In Paris and New York he has
printers trained to produce prints with those rich middle grays and
those accents of black and white which he prefers.
Contact sheets to Cartier-Bresson are visual indices to a p h o t o g r a p h e r ' s
style; ? f they tell everything of your t h i n k i n g " , he says. W h e n younger
photographers seek his advice, he asks to see their contact sheets, for
in t h e m is the flow of a m a n ' s vision. It is noteworthy t h a t in his own
contact s h e e t s the best pictures of a sequence almost always are the last.
A beginner's sheet will show how much was due to chance, and how
m u c h was the result of deliberate shooting to a climax. He respects the
privacy of these disclosures, and reads contact sheets in confidence.
He feels that photographers should self-edit t h e m before submitting
t h e m to anybody magazine editors in particular.
Although his photographs appear in print all over the world, Cartier-
Bresson's avowed reason for photographing is entirely personal. fe My
every-day w o r k " , he says, ff is like keeping a diary an almost daily
record of i m a g e s . " He finds in the intense observation of the world
t h r o u g h his camera and the recognition of the decisive m o m e n t the
greatest pleasure and satisfaction.
ece S r i n a g a r , K a s h m i r , 1948.
2 Brussels, 1932.
3 Gypsies, Andalusia, 1933.
4 U n e m p l o y e d , Madrid, 1933.
5 Callejon of t h e Valencia a r e n a , 1933.
6 C o r d o b a , 1933.
7 Taxi d r i v e r s , Berlin, 1932.
8 C u a u h c t e m o c z t i n s t r e e t , Mexico City, 1934.
9 Mexico, 1934.
10 Seville, 1933.
11 O u t i n g of a s e m i n a r y n e a r Burgos, 1953.
12 G y m n a s t i c s in r e f u g e e c a m p , K u r u k s c h e t r a , P u n j a b , India, 1947.
1 3 Barrio Chino, Barcelona, 1933.
14 Valencia, 1933.
15 M a d r i d , 1933.
16 M a r k e t in T h e b e s , Egypt, 1950.
17 Banks of the M a r n e , 1935.
18 Tivoli, Italy, 1933.
19 Dingle Peninsula, Ireland, 1953.
20 Interval at the G l y n d e b o u r n e Festival, England, 1955.
2 1 At the C u r r a g h r a c e t r a k , Dublin, 1955.
22 Castille, Spain, 1953.
2 3 C h r i s t m a s m i d n i g h t m a s s , S c a n n o , Abruzzi, 1953.
24 Seville, 1933.
25 C a n t e e n for c o n s t r u c t i o n w o r k e r s , Moscow, 1954.
26 E u n u c h , f o r m e r s e r v a n t in t h e Imperial C o u r t of the last dynasty, Peking, 1949.
27 Peking, 1949.
28 S h a n g h a i , w h e n gold was placed o n sale d u r i n g t h e last days of the K u o m i n t a n g , 1948.
29 P a r i s , 1932.
3 0 At the c o r o n a t i o n p a r a d e of G e o r g e VI, T r a f a l g a r S q u a r e , L o n d o n , 1938.
31 Palais Royal, Paris, 1960.
32 Hyde P a r k , L o n d o n , 1938.
3 3 N e a r the hall of r e c o r d s . New York, 1947.
34 Jean-Paul S a r t r e on the P o n t des A r t s , P a r i s , 1946.
3 5 Boston C o m m o n , 1947.
3 6 Exposing a stool pigeon for the G e s t a p o in a displaced persons c a m p , D e s s a u , 1945.
37 Cardinal Pacelli, later P o p e Pius XII, visiting t h e basilica of M o n t m a r t r e , 1938.
3 8 A c a d e m i c i a n arriving at N o t r e D a m e , Paris, 1954.
39 T e n n e s s e e , 1947.
4 0 William F a u l k n e r , Oxford, Mississippi, 1947.
41 Henri Matisse, Vence, 1944.
4 2 Alberto Giacometti, 1961.
43 Francois Mauriac, 1959.
44 M. and Mme Joliot-Curie, Paris, 1946.
4 5 Dieppe, 1929. ,
46 S u n d a y m o r n i n g e r r a n d , r u e M o u f f e t a r d , Paris, 1958.
47 Behind C a r e St. Lazare, Paris, 1932.
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