Meet from July 1 to September 25, 2022 to discover another facet of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson in his foundation in Paris.
“The landscape experience” by Henri Cartier-Bresson
The Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation unveils its summer program and, at the same time, its latest idyllic exhibition. “The landscape experience” will bring together famous photographs and other lesser known ones . Selected by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) at the end of his life, the photographs in the exhibition The Landscape Experience testify to the artist’s approach to what is not simply a setting for observe the human being, but a subject in its own right. Each of these images, taken between the 1930s and the 1990s in Europe, Asia and America, illustrates the construction of the landscape by the photographer, whether natural or urban. Initially trained in painting and drawing, Henri Cartier-Bresson also applies in photography the credo of Plato’s Academy, heard in André Lhote’s studio at the start of his long career : “Let no one enter here s ‘he is not a surveyor’.
A collection of 70 photographs
The composition of his images, the juxtaposition of planes, respect for proportions and the search for a harmonious relationship between forms characterize his work, which inspired many artists after him. Unlike nature in its “raw state”, the notion of landscape is relative to the activity of a subject – the one who looks, from a certain point of view. From this order between the elements of reality, Cartier-Bresson perceives a poetry and a joy where the landscapes are not only the framework in which to grasp a subject, but a motif of timeless appearance in dialogue with the human figure. He decided on this selection of images shortly before his death in 2004, even though he abandoned photography in favor of drawing in the early 1970s. Photographs that testify to the experience of the landscape, close, like drawing , meditation. With this selection of 70 photographs, he reveals the self-portrait of an artist in full questioning about his relationship to the world. The exhibition is completed by a selection of drawings by the artist from the collections of the HCB Foundation: a journey through the work of the photographer through a journey conducive to contemplation.
https://www.henricartierbresson.org/exhibitions/henri-cartier-bresson-paysage/
