Siphnos, Greece

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Siphnos, Greece

Artist Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)

Date1961, printed 1970s

DimensionsOverall: 11 15/16 x 16 in. (30.3 x 40.6 cm)

MediumGelatin-silver print

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1981.103

Not on View

Label TextThis 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.Exhibition HistoryTMA, Jan 22 - June 8, 1999 TMA Recent Acquisitions: Prints, Drawings, & llustrated Books Jan. 22, - June 24, 1983. Toledo Museum of Art, Refraction/Reflection, April 20-September 2, 2012.