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The eye of the century March 19, 2007

A stunning photo exhibition by one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century opens this week in Nicosia

It is difficult to say whether legendary picture agency Magnum Photos would have been created if Henri Cartier-Bresson hadn’t been one of its co-founders.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that he would have become one of the greatest photojournalists of the 20th century even without it. After all, some of his most striking pictures, such as the rotund man caught in mid-leap across a Paris puddle with his reflection in it, had been taken long before he and his friends started talking about the idea. Similarly, some of his best landscapes and portraits, such as of Jean-Paul Sartre or Matisse, were taken after he quit Magnum in 1966.

Still, nobody can dispute the fact that when in 1947, five internationally recognised photographers, Frenchman Cartier-Bresson, Polish Jew David Szymin, Hungarian Jew Robert Capa, Briton George Rodger and American William Vandivert, set up to divide the world. Capa and Chim took Europe, Rodger, Africa and the Middle East, Cartier-Bresson, Asia, and Vandivert who soon afterards withdrew, America. Modern hard-hitting news photography was born.

Magnum was an unusual project conceived by a group of unusual people. It was a cooperative photographic agency owned by its members, whose mission was to “feel the pulse” of the times. It aimed to use photography in the service of humanity and provide arresting, widely-viewed images, not only of main political events but also other, more human subjects, such as People Live Everywhere, Youth of the World, Women of the World or The Child Generation. Although, following the untimely deaths of Chim and Capa, both killed in armed conflicts, the division of the world became invalid, the principle of Magnum’s artistic/business purpose was in absolute agreement with the philosophy of Cartier-Bresson who in 1952 wrote:

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression. In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif. (…) I believe that through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us, which can mould us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds – the one inside us and the one outside us.” (“The Decisive Moment”)

During his long career, the Frenchman documented some of the most emblematic moments and figures of the last century. He covered the Spanish Civil War and the liberation of Paris, the death of Mahatma Gandhi and the disappearance of Beijing’s last imperial eunuchs, the Soviet Union of the 50s and Berlin Wall in the 60s.

But Cartier-Bresson would seldom concentrate on showpiece events. Instead he was more interested in stories developing on their peripheries: three men looking across the divide in West Berlin, a man asleep among the crowd watching the coronation of George VI, or an ordinary family holding a picnic on the banks of the River Marne.

Famous for his ability to capture “decisive moments”, that he defined to The Washington Post in 1957 as “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever”, the photographer, dubbed by his admirers as “the eye of the century”, would often admit that everything he learnt about composition came from his days spent in the 1920s at the Parisian studio of Cubist painter and sculptor Andre Lhote, whom together with his later friends, the surrealists, he considered his main teachers.

He never used artificial light, never cropped his pictures, and with few exceptions, never staged them. His technique was based on pre-visualising the finished print, waiting until the “decisive moment”, and then, with a single exposure, creating a photo that was both spontaneous and carefully composed. His was a style of photography made possible by the invention of the miniature hand-held camera that enabled him to move quickly and unobtrusively.

In the modern world, when we all have digital cameras on our mobiles and snap anything and everything around us without giving it a second thought, seeing Europeans at Nicosia’s Hellenic Bank will, hopefully, be for many a reminder of a different world, where preserving life in the act of living really mattered.

And without pointing fingers, how many of us should take into our hearts the following advice: “Things-As-They-Are offer such an abundance of material that a photographer must guard against the temptation of trying to do everything. It is essential to cut from the raw material of life – to cut and cut, but to cut with discrimination. While working, a photographer must reach a precise awareness of what he is trying to do”?

Europeans > Photography exhibition by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Organised by Hathor Productions in cooperation with Magnum Photos and Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. March 23-April 15. Hellenic Bank, 200 Athalassa Avenue, Nicosia. Visiting hours: Mon-Fri: 8am-1pm and 4-7pm. Sat and Sun: 3-7pm.