The URL below is a pictorial review. The article is
here:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/arts/design/09cartier.html
The lead photo on that article is the first photograph I ever saw where I
wanted to know the photographer's name, and it's the way I first came to
know of Cartier-Bresson. I remember seeing it when it first appeared in the
London Sunday Times and it was a real revelation to me about what a
photograph could be. I'd have been 15 years old at the time.
Remembering that we were still in the Cold War with no end in sight. I had
never heard of Soviet Georgia. The picture showed me somewhere that appeared
to be at odds with my image of the Soviet Union. In the picture Georgia
looks like a fairy-tale, with the weird church in the background like a
mediaeval space rocket isolated in an otherwise empty landscape, the family
like something from Grimm. Their pose, looking out of the frame, is full of
mystery but their lives look simple and not bad in the way we were led to
expect of the USSR at that time. The entire composition is a masterpiece,
with the car and its open door leading into the frame and serving like some
sort of gateway from the modern world into a timeless past - I always get
the sense that the family has been interrupted by visitors from the future,
or they're staring out at us looking in at them. It's a very inviting
landscape - ever since seeing the picture I've wanted to go there, and
Georgia is towards the top of my list of places for a long (ie several
weeks) visit. It's always felt equally mysterious to me how a photographer
came to be standing there at that time. It's a wonderful picture - it works
like poetry in the way it sets my imagination in motion.
Bob
On Apr 9, 2010, at 9:00 PM, paul stenquist wrote:
Had a chance to read the Times essay about HCB and the
upcoming show at MOMA. I found it excellent. It's on the web:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/cartier-bressons-modern-centu
ry-at-moma/?scp=1sq=Bresson%20st=cse
Paul
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