Henri Cartier Bresson began his art career studying painting with Andre Lhote and in those early days took up the camera as a means to make notes and to compile documents of the things that interested him. This exhibition presents us with a side by side study of his work and those of his mentors, the intention being to emphasize that he was not an artist working in isolation but one among many who were exploring the meaning and the possibilities in modern art. I understood this exhibition as an attempt to establish his credentials as a serious artist. Having seen it I find that I have quite another understanding: except for his ability to capture the spontaneous, the fleeting moment, seen in juxtaposition to these specific artists he comes off here as merely one among many who lack “the spark of genius” and whose works are perhaps a little too academic and pedestrian.
It is truly remarkable how many early twentieth century artists devoted time in their early careers to an understanding of the technique of cubism. The broad appeal and response to the Picasso/Braque breakthrough validated the importance of their work: it is seminal to the understanding of modern art. And it is a testament to the early 20th Century artists that they understood this from the first prior to it being a required course in the literature, the colleges, and the art schools of that day.
In this exhibition Andre Lhote is represented by several paintings showing us his comprehension of cubism. And while they are nice paintings rendered in his as opposed to the Picasso/Braque palette, as paintings they do not transcend the reference. If anything they are too much more in the art deco tradition. Where Cartier Bresson follows Lhote’s lead, his works too have that same academic character. In the work by the two artists that appears on the web site, I don’t see that the Lhote drawing makes the Cartier Bresson photograph more important or that it elucidates its value. They are merely similar.
Far more interesting are the works by Brassai, 1899-1984. In these the artist has begun with a black and white photograph, he has isolated the various shapes, and then used pen and ink, in a process here described as cliché verre, and with energetic lines he has created a strong sense of movement and of energy. The works indicate that he, better then Lhote, understood cubism intrinsically. The works are spontaneous, clever, and witty…in several the female nude of the photograph has been drawn over and “cubisiced” except for the breast and nipple, obviously for the artist the “holy of holies”.
When Cartier Bresson follows that concept he produces works such as the 1933 “Solerno, Italy”. In that photograph the wall of a building across the frame serves as a ground. A wall to the left and in perspective is another plane as is the shadow cast by that wall across the bottom of the frame. Just off center in the middle of this created space we see a silhouette of a young boy standing near a caisson. The various planes, textures, and tonal values create the image on the surface of a modern art work. The emptiness of the space and the emotional void of the subject references de Chirico, another artist cited here as an influence.
The Cartier Bresson photograph is one of his better known works and anyone who looks at art works would recognize immediately that it has been made in reference to modern art. Thus there is not much new learned in this exhibition except, perhaps, that Brassai is a photographer whose works one wants to know better.
Andre Kertesz, 1894-1985, is a third influence and his work suggests several insights although I am uncertain that these are the insights the museum wanted us to make. In his work we can see that Kertesz worked with a large format camera. As is typical of that medium his works are carefully composed, the lighting, all natural lighting, is carefully considered, and his beautiful prints are “tack sharp”. Comparing his “Paris, a gentleman”, a well dressed man standing in a park setting, to Cartier Bresson’s very similar “Allee du Prado, Marseilles”, the influence is obvious but what is also obvious is that the enlargement from the 35mm negative lacks Kertesz sharpness. In the Kertesz there are areas of flat tonal values whereas in the Cartier Bresson print those similar flat areas show a variation of tonal values because of the grain of the film; it is an area of mottled tone rather than flat color.
With that awareness the same sense of grain and of the soft edges can then be seen in other well known Cartier Bresson works…such as “Hyeres, France” seen also at the Met in the Gilman Collection (see The Gilman Collection below, July 2008). In this the steps and the railing in the foreground are in a softly sharp focus but the bicyclist whizzing by is in a softer focus, as would be expected of an object moving across the front of the lens. In addition to sensing the grain and the 35mm negative in this work, one also begins to question the spontaneity of this composition: did Cartier Bresson acted quickly and photograph something he saw that was about to happen or did he stand on the balcony and have the bicyclist ride back and forth in the street until he felt that he had made the photograph he had conceptualized?
Comparing the effects of the large format camera to those of the 35mm is not to suggest that one is correct and the other not or that one is preferable to the other. It merely bring to mind that the kind of photographs made by each of these different cameras creates a different end product each with its own sense of time and space, the 35mm camera suggesting immediacy, spontaneity, and energy and the larger format cameras suggesting a strong sense of place and the eternal moment. Digital photography somewhat successfully unites those two worlds.
In this exhibition we are shown how modern art has informed modern photography, as if to validate its importance. What I sense lacking in this exhibition is any suggestion that photography is an art form in and of itself and that it is independent of painting. A great photograph is important because it is a photograph, not because it references painting. Henri Cartier Bresson’s work is important because of his quick eye, his quick wit, and his mastery of the craft of photography. If I understand this exhibition correctly, I am somewhat of the opinion that the wrong inferences were made here.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/exhibition/cartierbresson
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment