Cartier-Bresson - Surrealism and communism!

[RichC]

"Almost everything you know about Henri Cartier-Bresson is wrong. Or, at least, long overdue a rethink." (Aperture Foundation)

"Cartier-Bresson once said: 'Surrealism has had a profound effect on me and all my life I have done my utmost never to betray it.' In this context, even some of his most often-seen images – that almost archetypal Frenchman caught mid-leap over a puddle, say – take on a new sense of suggestion; not so much decisive moments as well-observed tableaux that capture the innate absurdism of the everyday." (The Guardian)​

 

[Rodchenko]

Revealed as a Communist? I thought that was common knowledge. It informs a lot of his photography, FHS!

 

[NY_Dan]

Yes, and the Leica M series -- M for Mao!

 

[xayraa33]

When you are lucky enough to be born into a rich family you can choose any political view that you like and indulge in any hobby that you like.

Most of his photographs are enjoyable to view and that is all that matters.

 

[Jani_from_Finland]

When you are lucky enough to be born into a rich family you can choose any political view that you like and indulge in any hobby that you like.

Most of his photographs are enjoyable to view and that is all that matters.

Exactly right said. Comply completely.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

How else you'll get to USSR and China and take pictures? He must declare he was a red one back then. Have no red ass - no visa, no pictures.

 

[Steve M.]

The less I know about him, the better. All that matters is his work. I like a lot of it, but wonder how much of it was directed? I think this about a lot of photographers of that era. You just can't be in the right place at the right time over and over and over.

 

[NY_Dan]

You just can't be in the right place at the right time over and over and over.

It's possible to have a high batting average. His methods were good.

 

[StillKicking]

Henri Cartier-Bresson belonged to a generation of French intellectuals who were first and foremost antifascist. Often describing themselves as Communist, sometimes even joining the Communist party, they were in reality nothing of the kind. My French grandfather and several of my uncles fell into this category.. highly intelligent, articulate, professionals (doctors and teachers in my family) with social conscience and deep hatred of Fascism in all its forms. They would argue about class struggle and revolution while drinking fine wine and eating foie gras but then vote for George Pompidou. My father, who was born and raised in Flatbush (Brooklyn), found it all very amusing.

To quote Karl Marx "If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist."

 

[DNG]

You just can't be in the right place at the right time over and over and over.

It's possible to have a high batting average. His methods were good.

he did shoot over 600 frames a day.... even at a 5% hit rate.. that is 30+ keepers a day...

I don't care about his political attachments, he was an artist, not a politician....

 

[MartinP]

From friends who travelled there for holidays (yes, "Western" people did sometimes travel across the republics) it was bizarrely random about any difficulties for visas and so on in the old USSR.

If there was a negative flag against your name then it could be almost impossible, but with a nondescript person and an unimportant route/destination it could be different. For example, a French neighbour travelled by train with her brother (19 1/2 and 18 respectively, which may have helped with the visas) to visit distant relations in central Russia, with a holiday-detour on the way back via Georgia. All with no tourist-guide and no requirement to report to local police stations.

 

[noisycheese]

When you are lucky enough to be born into a rich family you can choose any political view that you like and indulge in any hobby that you like.

Most of his photographs are enjoyable to view and that is all that matters.

While I would agree with these thoughts, I would most decidedly disagree with categorizing Cartier-Bresson's images as the endeavors of a hobbyist or a dilettante. Cartier-Bresson was not what one could accurately call a member of the idle rich or the leisure class.

Henri did indeed come from a very wealthy family that afforded him a financial safety net in spite of his refusal to do his father's bidding and take over the family business empire.

However: He endeavored to make his own way in this world, to make a name for himself in his chosen endeavor and to make his mark on this world, which he was successful at doing - and in sp@de$.

 

[airfrogusmc]

At the time the world was disillusioned with capitalism as a whole because of the market crash of '29. As bad as things were in the US, Europe faired worse. Why would him being a communist or not even matter one way or the other of course unless you were McCarthy.

 

[leicapixie]

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140554

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140554

Wow! I am totally devastated! Oh me,Oh my.
A card carrying Communisto..
Honestly, as if the real communists carried their membership cards, with them.LOL.
The only force opposing the Fascists and Nazi vermin, were the Communists and Socialists.
The Nazis/Fascists were supported by the rich industrialists,Ford,Shell etc.
HCB was opposed to evil.
Everyone knows he shot surreal till the 2nd World War.
Later HCB was a documentary photojournalist.
In a late interview HCB claimed "I am a Buddhist."
Martine Frank, his wife, shouted from another room,
"Yes, but a very affirmative one!".
So which one?
HCB was an artist.

 

[__jc]

Why on earth is anything I've ever known about HCB overdue for a rethink?

I question the leading statement because it has been for as long as I can remember common knowledge (or at least I thought it was common knowledge) that he trained as an artist with the surrealists and joined the Communist Party of France at a young age.

He also had a great many other characteristics as a person - so what? Why would it make you rethink his work? Why if it makes you want to rethink his work do you think I should also rethink his work?

His work stands as the legacy he has left us.

 

[redisburning]

1. surrealism and ultra left wing politics were intertwined and not knowing that any self described surrealist was at LEAST socialist/utilitarian is ignorance, not having things kept from you.

2. being a communist isn't a bad thing. the command economy was merely an experiment that ultimately failed. being a supporter of that was not a personal failure. a personal failure is subscribing the cowardice of an ignorant public taught that communism and socialism are the same thing, and that any purely economic system is inherently evil when you ought to know better.

good on Bresson.

 

[noisycheese]

Henri Cartier-Bresson was an artist first and foremost. His political outlook is a non-issue to me.

He concentrated on his photography and his drawing; he did not try to ram his politics down other people's throats and tell them how to live their lives "for their own good."
Today's crop of academics, entertainers and political class types would do well to follow Messr. Cartier-Bresson's example in that regard.

 

[Vics]

I didn't see anything new in this story. It's all been hashed over before. I've loved his work since my earliest days in photography (mid '60s. Yikes!) He still has a profound influence over my own amateur work.

 

[mfogiel]

HCB was a great man of his time. He was to an extent someone, who we would call today a "radical chic", as he was wealthy from the birth. This should not confuse you. He wanted to understand, he got involved, he made a difference ( think of his photos of India and China). Above all, he was a humanist. Today, it is easy to confuse communists with totalitarian autocrats, but at its source, communism appealed to many, because it was a dream about how to uplift humanity. HCB was seeking both the beauty and the "righteousness", or fairness, versus other human beings. If he were a dogmatic communist, he could have never been a friend of Koudelka. Ask Koudelka, if HCB was a communist.
I am grateful to HCB foremost for the images with which he has graced our eyes. Then, if you would like to understand his social motives better, look at this short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4FnfNKwUo
It might make you reflect on your life too.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Being a Communist was a different statement in the period 1920-39, historical perspective, the changes in attitude to the USSR post war, the McCarthy era etc. all colour our image of what it means.
Lots of intellectuals in the pre-war era considered themselves to be communist, some overtly the opposite-when HCB made that statement the world was a different place–time changes our perspective.