Henri Cartier-Bresson: Europeans - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500542163 ISBN 13: 9780500542163

Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1998

Synopsis

In 1955, Henri Cartier-Bresson published "The Europeans", a collection of photographs taken over a period of five years. His portrait of the continent documented a landscape shadowed by the war, where people lived among ruins and still bore the mark of hunger. For this new book, over 40 years later, the celebrated photographer has brought together a far broader range of images, spanning the years from the late 1920s to the early 1970s. Cartier-Bresson has travelled across Europe, from the Scandinavian shield to the Yugoslavian "karst", from the Breton granites to the Irish bogs, in order to capture what it means to be European. Beyond nationalism and the particular characteristics of each culture and nation, he has found evidence of a greater identity, a family likeness shared by the people and the landscape. With his ability to capture the fragile reality of European life, Henri Cartier-Bresson once again underscores his reputation as one of the 20th century's most influential and original photographers.

About this title

Review:

Photography has developed as one of the few genuinely new artistic forms of the modern age, and without any doubt one of its masters is Henri Cartier-Bresson. As a result the work of the French master of the lens has come to define the modern world itself. His career straddles the 20th century, both historically and geographically. America in Passing has already offered Cartier-Bresson's unique angle on America, whilst Henri-Cartier-Bresson in India rivals Don McCullin's India as a hypnotic series of photo-essays on the Indian subcontinent. Cartier-Bresson's latest compilation of photographs, Europeans, offers an astonishing panorama of the continent which has shaped the French photographer's career, from the hope of 1930s Republican Spain to the poverty and anonymity of Russia and Romania in the 1970s.

What is particularly extraordinary about Europeans is not just its geographical and historical range, but also its photographic variety. The images range from beautiful landscape photos of the Alto Douro and Torcello in the 1950s to scenes of intimate and violent urbanity in Naples and Paris in the 1960s. What makes Cartier-Bresson such a master of photography appears again and again in the collection--mastery of light, tone and composition, matched with an ability to capture extraordinary moments in the life of a continent, from the liberation of Paris to a glance exchanged on a Moscow street. If there is one book of photographs to define what it means to live in 20th-century Europe, it is surely this; an instant classic. -- Jerry Brotton

Review:

'Presents those images that show exactly what it is to be European ... Through Bresson's lens, for just one moment, they are all real, raw and true' --Amateur Photographer

'A master of 20th-century photography ... a testament to a continent in the aftermath of war ... All European life is here'
--The Daily Express

`Iconic images abound'
--The Scotsman

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0500542163
• ISBN 13: 9780500542163
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 232
• Editor: Clair Jean