[lit-ideas] Re: Henri Cartier-Bresson
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:42:16 -0700 (PDT)
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Paul <Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Aug 4, 2004 3:06 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Henri Cartier-Bresson
Yes, I think Atget is the better craftsman, but there is, paradoxically, to my
eyes, more intense life and more spaciousness in Cartier-Bresson, and the range
of his subjects was wider (Algiers, Moscow, China, e.g.), while Atget was mostly
limited to late 19th and early 20th century Paris and its environs.
He used a large plate camera and his made contact prints from the negatives
(many of his plates were purchased and printed by Berenice Abbott in the 1950s).
Cartier-Bresson worked (exclusively, as far as I know) in 35mm, and freed
photography from the salon forever. No longer was it the stepchild of painting.
A.A. The words "stepchild of painting" are curious. I had always associated
photography with ending art as it had been known and with bringing in the
moderns. Since photography was representing life the way it really was, or so
the theory as I understood it went, there was no more need for painting in the
traditional sense. Painting adapted by taking a different path with Picasso's
and Braque's looking at items from many perspectives, Dali's dream-like
associations and so on. Photography was more like an entirely new bloodline
than a stepchild I would say.
Andy Amago
But we don't have to choose. They were both giants.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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