Siphnos, Greece
Artist: Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Date: 1961, printed 1970s
Dimensions:
Overall: 11 15/16 x 16 in. (30.3 x 40.6 cm)
Medium: Gelatin-silver print
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1981.103
Label Text:This photograph, like so many of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s images, unites his ability to capture a fleeting moment with his unfailing sense for the “rightness” of a composition. It is a prime example of the strict discipline needed to intuit the instantaneous “decisive moment.” Cartier-Bresson’s “intuition” was gained through the study of the Old Masters, association with the great European painters of his day (Braque, Matisse, and Rouault), and by painting his own compositions. He felt that to become a good photographer one needed to develop within themselves, by painting or drawing, the sense of what makes a good picture.
A fleeing, soon-to-disappear, child is the center of this beautifully composed arrangement of white, gray and black shapes—a marriage of poetry, artistry, and luminosity. The complexity of the spatial/surface interaction in this composition reveals qualities not commonly seen in the photographs of any other artist.
A fleeing, soon-to-disappear, child is the center of this beautifully composed arrangement of white, gray and black shapes—a marriage of poetry, artistry, and luminosity. The complexity of the spatial/surface interaction in this composition reveals qualities not commonly seen in the photographs of any other artist.
Not on view
In Collection(s)