Henri Cartier-Bresson’s output in the early thirties represents a unique creative outpouring surpassing his later work. Its importance lies in the impact it had on establishing his style and its influence on photojournalism and the art world. Unprecedented creativity is undeniable, but assessed as a whole compared to his later work it represents a fragment in a long career of groundbreaking photography. His first years are represented by several elements: raw artistic influences, youth and an experimental spirit without financial or creative restraint, new photographic technology, and political convictions. The question of whether his early work was superior to his later work hits the photographic essence of Henri Cartier-Bresson, or HCB: art versus journalism. Magnum, the photo agency he helped create, earned a reputation for internal drama with heated squabbles between art-minded photographers and photojournalists. This struggle sums up the dichotomy in HCB and reveals much behind the divide between his early and Magnum years. (
Miller, 1997)
The photo-reporter and artist are interdependent. Without journalism, HCB–called 'the godfather of photojournalism'
(Genius of Photography, 2007c)–may not have sustained himself or won recognition. To understand his early work’s impact, historical aspects of his artistic, political, and journalistic life require examination.
HCB’s art background affected his photographic style, but he did not consider himself a photographer. He deemed the camera simply a medium to communicate: ‘The camera is just another tool,’ he said (
Charlie Rose, 2003). He accentuated the importance of personal vision. ‘Sensitivity, intuition and a sense of geometry: that’s all you need…What matters is to look, but people don’t look…they just press a button’ (
Impassioned Eye, 2003).
His grasp of composition transferred from his art training to his photography. Surrealism impacted him as well, particularly surrealists’ embrace of photography and Andre Breton’s spirit of revolt. ‘Crush tradition! Photograph things as they are!’ was a sentiment to stem from European schools of photographic realism. Author Peter Galassi noted: ‘Alone the surrealist walks the street without destination but without premeditated alertness from the unexpected detail that will release a marvelous and compelling reality just beneath the banal surface’ (
Nolan & Slaughter, 1999).
HCB’s rebelliousness melded well with surrealist thought, helping him accept photography. At a time when the elite art establishment attempted to elevate photography beyond the reach of amateurs, surrealists embraced photography because it was purely mechanical and automatic. They admired photographers like Eugéne Atchét, one of HBC’s influences, while dismissing academic and professional photography.
Cartier-Bresson gave himself up to the surprises of the street [and] gritty realism…[For HCB, photography helped] eliminate the distinction between art and life…The tools of his art–a few rolls of film, the small camera–required no distinction between living and working (Galassi, 1978).
Strong symbolism mirrored HBC’s reality. Two major significant emotional events, in Africa and during World War II, made him face mortality. Before the war he buried and years later dug up his Leica. Upon his re-emergence, he helped curate his much acclaimed “posthumous” photography show at the MOMA in New York. Born to wealth, HCB had no interest in his family’s business. He headed to Africa for a year and was exposed to French colonial life. ‘Africa made a deep impression on me and against colonialism–it’s atrocious,’ he said. (
Impassioned Eye, 2003) He supported himself by hunting and began photographing with a second-hand camera. ‘Cartier-Bresson was a big game hunter. He’d gone on shooting things, and he was a stalker,’ said art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto. ‘You had to wait for that animal to appear. You stalked that animal, and at that moment you had to be ready to shoot’ (
Genius of Photography, 2007c). HBC said,
I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to “trap life.” Above all, I craved to seize, in the confines of one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation that was in the process of unfolding before my eyes (Decisive Moment, 1952).
HBC contracted black water fever, almost died and most of his Africa pictures were ruined. Back in France, he began photographing seriously, shedding his old damaged camera for a Leica. This small handheld camera used 35 mm roll film and gave photographers freedom and mobility. It liberated the camera from the tripod for an alternative to 'belly button photography' as Russian photographer Alexander Rodchenko said (
Genius of Photography, 2007b). ‘It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it,’ said HBC (
Decisive Moment, 1952). He made many of his best pictures within this period, factors providing a creative edge.
HCB was young and free of financial worries or other constraints. He was fresh from life as a painter and art student with strong influences from surrealism, cubism, and classical training. His brush with death pushed him toward the instantaneousness of photography. Photography was ‘quicker than drawing,’ he said (
Charlie Rose, 2003). More poetically he said,
To me photography means discovering rhythm, lines and gradations in reality. The eye does the framing and the camera does the work. It registers the decision the eye makes. You see a photograph all at once like a painting (Impassioned Eye, 2003).
He was an amateur photographer, but amateurs were responsible for breaking new ground, pushing boundaries and reclaiming it from elites. Twenty-five years later he still regarded himself as such (
Decisive moment, 1952). He knew artists like Degas did not respect photography but with his defiant surrealist spirit and art background was confident (
Genius of Photography, 2007b).
Several of HCB’s photographs at this time were groundbreaking. His picture
Behind the Gare Saint Lazare (1933), captures a man frozen in mid-step above a puddle of water mimicking a circus poster in the in the distance. There are several compositional elements such as rings in the water and the lines of a board the figure springs from, along with his reflection and background, which are an exercise for the senses and mind. Some see more meaning to it. Photographer Phillip Jones-Griffiths called it the best photograph of the twentieth century and referring to symbolism of a broken hoop said, ‘He was the Nostradamus of the early thirties who predicted what would happen to Europe in that single image. Europe was jumping into the unknown. It’s a great, great photograph for that reason’ (
Genius of Photography, 2007c). HBC described photographing this scene as haphazard, sticking his camera between bars in a fence and not seeing the man jump, but it speaks to his intuition. This photo defines the
decisive moment, now the most familiar concept in all of photography. Jones-Griffiths called it ‘a visual orgasm.’ (
Genius of Photography, 2007c), and it can be summed as when a subject is trapped in a scene of determined composition when all elements come together. (
Frizot, 2007)
James Nachtwey described another defining early picture.
He made an image in Spain of a band of children playing on a street, a heavyset man in a suit and fedora walking through their midst and, in the background, a constellation of windows scattered across the wall of a building. It wasn't a picture about anything. It was a moment most of us would never notice, but in his eyes it became an enigma, so full of suspense, you could almost hear the click of a detonator (2004).
These years served as photojournalistic training. He perfected his technique exploring unrestrained artistic vision. He often sought downtrodden subjects resulting in a unique brand of documentary photography and pushing creative limits, he found a unique voice. When he began life as a photojournalist, he matured and had more to say. (Cookman, 2003) Photographers he most admired worked primarily as photojournalists. ‘I couldn’t believe such a thing could be caught with a camera. I said ‘damn it!’ I took my camera and went into the street,’ said HCB about Martin Munkacsi’s picture,
Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika (
Nolan & Slaughter, 1999).
HCB said Munkacsi’s picture inspired him most. Classically composed, it captures three boys splashing into a wave. He cited other influences from the documentary tradition. ‘I have many fathers: [André] Kertesz, Walker Evans–especially Kertész. Chim and Capa.’ Following the fruitful early thirties, he began work at the communist newspaper Ce Soir where he met David Seymore, or Chim, and Robert Capa with whom, along with George Rodgers, he later formed Magnum. During this time, marked by the rise of fascism in Spain, Italy and Germany, he changed, especially vis-á-vis his political convictions. Soon, he went to Spain like Chim and Capa but experimented with filmmaking, which he would always call a mistake.
While serving in a photographic unit during World War II, he was captured and imprisoned for three years of hard labor until escaping on his third attempt. ‘The world in process was his raw material. He was difficult to define, and he could not be contained, as the Germans found out when he escaped from a prison camp during World War II and joined the Resistance,’ (
Nachtwey, 2004). He grew beyond the ‘little surrealist photographer,’ as Capa called him (
Boxer, 2007). Before the war, HCB buried his Leica in the Vosges Mountains, retrieving it after his escape (
Boxer, 2007). This Lazarus-like act marked a detour. Despite, an outpouring of creativity in his early years, his photojournalistic years matched artistic prowess with larger messages. ‘I became less interested in what one might call an ‘abstract’ approach to photography,’ he said (
Nolan & Slaughter, 1999). He heard of a
posthumous show the MOMA in New York–who believed he was killed in the war–was preparing: he offered his help. The posthumous label fit as it marked the point when the old HCB died and a new HCB, the Magnum photojournalist, emerged in magazine photojournalism’s golden age.
Work from his Magnum years stands out as some of his best. In the comprehensive photographic collection called
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, The Image & The World, many of his early photographs are displayed with his Magnum work. This provides a window to much of his life’s work without separating eras, as Peter Galassi did in his examination of his early work (
Frizot, 2007 p.37). His pictures merge smoothly, often with powerful journalistic or historical context such as
Ghandi’s funeral. Famous pictures such as the
condemnation of a Nazi sympathizer made during his work for the French resistance, the
funeral of a Kabuki actor or
Kashmiri women in burkas on a hillside were all produced for publication but his artistic execution elevates them.
A 1975 photograph taken in an American prison shows a single arm and leg thrust out from behind cell bars and could easily mix with his best early work.
HCB’s work was inspirational and changed the medium, helping to blur the line between art and photography.
Annie Liebovitz and Richard Avedon, from an artistic journalistic tradition, contrasted with documentary-edged photojournalists Steve McCurry and James Nachtwey demonstrate the depth and diversity of his influence. ‘He is the greatest photographer of the twentieth century,’ said Avedon. ‘Everyone is a Cartier-Bresson baby. Everybody has taken from him’ (
Charlie Rose, 2000).
His work, although kind of documentary in nature…is considered art. It has this universal appeal…I think he was probably the biggest influence on documentary photographers of the last 40 or 50 years. He really kind of perfected this sort of street photography style literally just walking around randomly looking at life and exploring what was going on around him…His work stands our as the most important of modern times, said Steve McCurry (Cultural Expressions, 2008).
HCB’s early work established an approach that changed art photography and photojournalism. While exploring, testing boundaries, and searching for his voice, he found a photojournalist who used artistic vision within the boundaries set by editors. ‘Henri…hated assignments. For Henri, a good assignment was an opportunity to make pictures the way he wanted,’ said former Magnum editor John Morris (
Miller p.106). His output in the early thirties represented a unique creative outpouring surpassing his later work, but is foremost in its importance in forming his style along with its impact on photojournalism and art. His entire body of work stands out cohesively as unique, surpassing others.
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I spent a couple of days in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe this week traveling with my wife in our mutual Christmas gift of 10-days of kid-free travel (kids are with their grandmother). She was a bit nervous about me getting into trouble and was constantly reminding me to exercise caution. I did, but still managed to get into trouble. Police are everywhere on foot in the small tourist town, but mostly to free tourists from overbearing street vendors who are eager to trade their trinkets for a bar of soap, shoes, t-shirts and other items aside from their national currency. I was advised by locals and hotel staff to avoid the obvious--photographing of police, banks, lines at ATMs, police stations, official buildings or "anything that shows the economy," one person told me. 
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