André Vigneau

ANDRÉ VIGNEAU: (1892-1968)

Fotógrafo, pintor, escultor y cineasta francés. Artista surrealista, además de uno de los exponentes de vanguardia. Contrató en su estudio de diseño , durante los años 30, a Robert Doisneau como ayudante.

MAN RAY: (1890-1976)

Nació en Philadelphia (EEUU). Fue fotógrafo , pintor, escultor,ilustrator, cineasta y filósofo. Además  de ser uno más de los representantes del Dadaísmo y el Surrealismo. Fue una persona clave y muy influyente en la fotografía de Robert Doisneau.

ROBERT CAPA: (1913-1954)

Fotógrafo húngaro y corresponsal de guerra. En 1936, junto con su compañera Gerda Taro, inventó la figura de Robert Capa, fascinante periodista estadounidense. Aunque la ficción no tardó en ser descubierta, decidió conservar ese nombre. Murió en Vietnam.

Cartier Bresson

CARTIER – BRESSON: (1908-2004)

Robert Giraud

ROBERT GIRAUD: (1921-1997)

JEAN PAUL SARTRE:

Albert Camus

ALBERT CAMUS: (1913-1960)

Brasaï

BRASSAÏ (GYULA HALÀZ): (1899-1984)

IZIS (ISRAEL BIDERMANAS):

Willy Ronis

WILLY RONIS: (1910-2009)

René Clair

RENÉ CLAIR: (1898-1981)

NICOLE VÉDRÈS:

Truffaut

TRUFFAUT: (1932-1984)

Tavernier

TAVERNIER: ()

Francoise Bornet

FRANÇOISE BORNET: ()

Brassai_Paris By Night

I have found that I am most attracted to photographing my site at nighttime.  The shadows create a play of light and dark shapes that play through the image.  I was looking through the Brassai book at the library the other day and I came across this image and it grabbed my attention immediately.  Every night when I ride home, the orange and green lights of the street lamps fall through the leaves of the trees and through the gates, casting eerie shadows across the ground.  The shadows seem to be moving as I ride my bike down the curving, dark path.  The night before I found this Brassai image, I had stopped in the park to snap some pictures…

Eveniment

Muzeul de Artă onorează memoria fotografului Gyula Halász prin expoziţia aniversară a 110 ani de la naşterea lui. Am auzit abia de curând de fotograf, cunoscut la nivel internaţional mai degrabă sub numele de Brassaï. Născut în Braşov, Halász s-a mutat însă la scurt timp în Paris, unde a surprins aspecte cunoscute ori ascunse ale vieţii oraşului, publicate sub pseudonimul care aminteşte de orasul natal.

Expoziţia

Se întinde în cele două săli de la parterul muzeului, cuprinzând pe lângă fotografiile sale o serie imagini biografice ale fotografului, din copilăria şi tinereţea lui, alături de cărţi poştale despre care descrierea menţionează “nedatate”, însă cu puţină insistenţă îşi trădează vârsta exactă. În colecţia prezentată, aparţinând Bibliotecii Judeţene Braşov, apar câteva fotografii cu Pablo Picasso, unele împreună cu fotograful. Pictorul nu este singura personalitate artistică majoră cu care Brassaï a avut tangenţe de-a lungul carierei: Henry Miller era unul din admiratorii fotografiei braşoveanului, în special datorită relevării faţetelor Parisului.

Imaginile surprinse în Paris în perioadele interbelică şi postbelică încapsulează atât locuri cunoscute cât şi senzaţii, stări, trăiri ale parizienilor de pe vremuri. În selecţia expusă veţi vedea imagini cu arhicunoscutul turn Eiffel, dar şi colţuri de stradă la care se sarută îndrăgostiţii la lumina unui lampadar, încrengăturile căilor ferate de la gara centrală, peisaje industriale ori urbane nocturne.

Frânturi din imagini

Mi-au placut în mod deosebit fotografiile nocturne care foloseau jocurile de lumini cu apa. Un trotuar proaspăt plouat înviorează superb o simplă stradă prin răsfrângerea luminilor şi reflexiilor, mai slabe, ale clădirilor şi trecătorilor. De parcă peisajul s-ar dedubla sau s-ar vedea pe sine în oglindă.

Sunt destul de multe fotografii realizate noaptea, cele mai captivante fiind cele care înfăţişează oameni ori alte entităţi în mişcare devenite tulburări translucide luminoase datorită timpilor lungi de expunere. Am reţinut una în mod particular; o veţi găsi în colţul din dreapta al sălii mari, în spatele pianului: fotografie asupra unei intersecţii luată de la etajul unei case, imediat ce s-a aşezat un strat subţire de zăpadă. La o privire mai atentă se observă urmele trecerii “fantomelor” pe trotuar, pe lângă două-trei grupuleţe nemişcate, iar pe drum apar liniile întunecate lăsate de maşini prin stratul de nea dar şi fire subţiri, luminoase, sinuoase, de intensităţi şi dimensiuni variate, ale farurilor plutind prin aer.

O altă fotografie spectaculoasă pentru privitor(ii mai degrabă neavizaţi, cum am fost noi) e cea a unei dansatoare aflată în plină piruetă, cu fusta generoasă evident în rotaţie însă cu figura surprinsă perfect. Cred că pe asta o gasiţi undeva în stânga pianului.

Amintindu-mi imaginile văzute, parcă mă tentează să mai fac o vizită expoziţiei, să mai privesc o dată pe îndelete. Pe de altă parte, având în vedere că respectiva colecţie aparţine Bibliotecii, nu pot să nu mă întreb ce se întâmplă cu ea atunci când nu e expusă. Oare se poate consulta, sau e scoasă din firidele prăfuite numai la zile mari?

Vizitare

Expoziţia fotografiilor lui Brassaï rămâne la Muzeul de Artă din Braşov până la 15 noiembrie şi o puteţi vedea în zilele de marţi până duminică între 10.00-18.00 pentru sume modice: 1 leu pentru elevi, studenţi şi preşcolari, 2 lei pentru pensionari şi 3.5 lei pentru cei ce nu se încadrează în aceste categorii favorizate

Muzeul de Artă găzduieşte la etaj expoziţia permanentă a numeroase lucrări de Nicolae Grigorescu, alături de o serie de tablouri realizate de Ştefan Luchian, Th. Pallady precum şi o sală mică dedicată artei moderne.

Resurse

Site-ul Muzeului de Artă - neaşteptat de cuprinzător şi bine realizat – şi pagina dedicată expoziţiei Brassaï

Album online la Masters of Fine Art Photography

Articol în Encyclopaedia Britannica

Articole Wikipedia: în română şi engleză

Here is a nice piece I found on the GRIID site this AM from Kate Wheeler.

“To Tommy Allen: I thought that the way that you took the mood and imagery of Brassai and updated it into the context of 21st century relationships is really inventive and involving. You have a right to be proud of your work.”

(Kate, I am very proud…thanks for the observations that were spot on! You really know you Art History.)

“La esencia de lo bello. Según mi parecer – le decía el gran historiador del arte norteamericano Bernard Berenson al periodista Umberto Morra -, si se procede indagando, en el fondo de lo bello se encuentra lo bueno, como en el fondo de lo bueno se encuentra lo bello: es una fusión que forma el sentido del destino humano; bello (y bueno) lo que no se contradice, sino que ayuda y acompaña al destino humano, un quid que tiene, por lo tanto, en sí algo heroico y trágico. También la gente común siente este deseo; por lo tanto, lo bello es una cosa eminentemente deseable. Pero la gente está también lista a equivocarse y a correr tras falsos mensajes de belleza; obras falsamente míticas que parecen empapadas de un gran impulso heroico y plenas de destino: éstas son las más fácilmente traducibles”.

Todo esto se lo decía Berenson a Morra ( “Coloquio con Berenson“) (Fondo de Cultura) en agosto de 1932, paseando por I Tatti, la villa situada en las colinas de Florencia, pero sobre todo paseando por las reflexiones del arte, como habían paseado también por otras avenidas parecidas el portugués Francisco de Holanda, en Roma, con Miguel Ángel, Eckermann con Goethe, James Bosswell con el doctor Samuel Johnson y como lo haría el fotógrafo Brassaï con Picasso, el director de orquesta Robert Craft con Stravinski, Janouch con Kafka, Goldenveizer con Tolstoi o Émile Bernard con Cézanne, por citar algunas grandes conversaciones.

Tales conversaciones y tales palabras eran recogidas en la memoria o en el cuaderno de quienes escuchaban y en esas improvisadas lecciones de sabiduría, confesiones de destilada experiencia, parecía como si el arte, la filosofía y la historia se remansaran y el pensamiento entregara, a cada paso, la síntesis de una meditación.

“Leer las cosas nuevas con el solo objeto de “estar al corriente” – le decía también Berenson a Morra en 1931 – es uno de los pecados contra el espíritu. A las cosas nuevas no hay que dedicarles más que la décima parte del propio tiempo y una parte mínima de la propia energía (que es siempre inferior a lo que esperamos) ¿Qué es esta “corriente”? Es un minúsculo río casi subterráneo que aparece en pocos salones; y hay corrientes, o mejor, hay una corriente más verdadera que aquella en que se piensa refiriéndose a la moda. Los periódicos, sí, los lee uno por las “cosas nuevas” que anuncian, pero es una lectura que cuesta poco trabajo especialmente a quien, como yo, tiene una práctica de cinco mil años de crónicas escritas”.

Es esa gran cuestión de la reelectura de las cosas esenciales y la lectura esencial de cuantas cosas importantes nos quedan por leer, sin dejar por ello de atender a ciertas novedades.  Es el paseo bajo los árboles de la cultura,  confidencias de un amigo del espíritu.

(Imágenes: 1.-”Black hole”.- Osang Gwon.-2000.-Arario Gallery.-Beijing.- Seoul- Korea.-artnet/2.”Guyver, dptych 2007″-.Jin-Ya Huang.–Sous Les Etoiles Gallery.-New York.-artnet)

At last night’s evening talk at the Photographers’ Gallery, Colin Ford (first head of the National Media Museum and scribe of the catalogue of the Serpentine Kertész exhibition of 1980/81) announced that he was curating an exhibition for the Royal Academy on Andre and his Hungarian contemporaries (Brassai, Capa et al).

It will be on in a couple of years.

And it will be superb (he says with confidence).

Colin – can I call you Colin? – also said a great many other things in a very informative talk about the life and works of Kertész. Best of all though it was all accompanied by the clack and whirr of a rotary slide projector – including a proper back-to-front slide.

That’s how things should be done.

Dear Meg,

I really am trying to write. Actually, the truth is that I haven’t begun writing at all. I have all the materials I need to begin writing, but there’s this present lack of something in me that leads me to a persistent inability not only to finding my words, but also to having real thoughts. Letter writing has failed me, travel has failed me, adventures have failed me, digging up family ghosts have failed me, I’ve tried all these things in the past few weeks and I find myself unable to write like I once could. It’s terrifying. So now I’ve been watching Godard and some opera (I don’t mean just any ol’ opera, I mean un certain opéra) and hoping desperately that forcing myself to write about these things will bring me quickly back to my senses. If nothing else will, then that’s that, I simply am unable to write ever again and I will have to just be ilwriterishly for ever after.

In the meantime I’ve been reading a lot of old reviews regarding works I’ve been involved with—and it seems to me that critics are quite possibly the dullest bunch ever formed by god, and I can only hope that someday a new sort of criticism will emerge, in which the critic will begin under the assumption that the artist knows precisely what he or she

(must I include ‘or she’–or can I just go along with the old rules of grammar in which the masculine gender is attributed to an indeterminate subject? or am I supposed to switch back and forth, like in the science safety videos where all the kids always have names we’ve never heard before? honestly, Meg, sometimes I can’t even lift my pen because I don’t know what to do with my pronouns! How do you deal with this?)

has created, has made every decision with infinite deliberation. That’s how I always tried to approach creative writing classes, in which I’d assume typos to be artistic statements. That’s how critics should be approaching everything—with a reasonable touch of taste, but mostly with confidence in the artist. Full disclosure: I was a critic for a big newspaper for four years, so I can assuredly say that there are few critical sins I did not leave uncommitted. But I suppose the special hell for critics will look very much like a Ben Franklin arts and crafts supply store.

The thing about these films that so agonizes me is how they speak to such vast numbers of people. The memory of France I most wish to rid myself of is of that smiling idiot and his expensive camera and his  adorable ‘I make websites for a living and go camping on weekends’ outfit photographing Brassai’s old apartment building and the Bunuel/Henry Miller/etc etc etc etc cafe beneath it. I want them to speak only to me. When I saw Jules et Jim originally, in the ‘foreign language lab’ I’d sneaked into so I could borrow the film from the French department and watch it wearing rubber headphones on a tiny yellowed television. The brilliance I drew from it was the following: it was made to be a very long and boring film so that at the very end the audience could be shocked by the casual treatment of death and cremation. Last I saw it I found it unspeakably beautiful, it was a whole world. So with Godard, my introduction to him, all on the large screen, was quite similar, looking for his funny sound-effects, his references to other films, his odd usage of the camera for conveying dialogue, his breaking of the rules. I understood that he was making art for its own sake, not for the sake of beauty, not because he might be able to make things new. I once looked at art as something to only be dissected, to be treated like a vial of blood to be separated and analyzed, to eke out cell-counts and percentages and meaning, when the truth of the matter is that George Michael refuses to get himself checked for HIV because he’s afraid of what the results might be—and if we took some of his blood and scientists analyzed it for every possible measurement it could yield, those scientists would find nothing telling of his sweet singing voice. That’s a proper comparison, isn’t it? Because although George Michael’s HIV status won’t change what he’s accomplished as a singer and what he still accomplishes today, his knowing the status could be helpful in prolonging his life and whatever other good that might effect. So perhaps although treating a film like a picky child treats a chicken leg might be useless in terms of understanding its beauty, perhaps it comes in useful when determining its longevity. But I sure hope not.

My great fear is that with age, if I’m finding these films beautiful now, that I someday might end up like that proto-emo kid in American Beauty who videotapes plastic bags blowing in the wind. He can go to hell too, along with everyone who gathers in big groups and lets go of balloons. But besides that, once you reach the point of finding beauty in plastic bags you’ve probably lost all usefulness to humanity. One needs standards. Here’s a standard: Sri Lanka is actually an island, and its political boundaries are not at all shaped like Vietnam.

“You speak to me with words, and I look at you with emotions.”

This is spoken by the woman to the man in a conversation I feel central to one of Godard’s concerns here, which is the failure of communication between men and women.

Briefly: Belmondo runs off with his babysitter, Anna Karina, and the two of them do what everyone does in Godard films. But they do it while being criminals and committing many crimes it’s difficult to slight them for, also Belmondo gets water-boarded twice without the camera cutting away from him

(which, if you’re counting, means that the actor Belmondo was water-boarded at least as many times as was once claimed of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed)–

but what’s most important is that the two of them run away together and there’s never really any motive established except their love for one another (ultimately questionable) and an equally fierce longing for romanticism in life. Do you know what a Carioca is? A native of Rio de Janeiro. Can you imagine how different things would be if  Columbus had thought he’d landed at Rio de Janeiro, and then he’d call everyone Cariocans. It’d be such a mess. Belmondo finds himself at peace when they live by the sea, quite romantic, he reads and writes, she says “I don’t give a damn about books” and declares herself quite bored. By the time they lose each other in a brief accident involving murder, dancing, and water-boarding, I’m led to believe that she didn’t want to stick around, and when they find each other again, I don’t entirely believe in her love anymore.

The problem is that I identify with both of them. How many times a day do I not give a damn about art before rushing and clutching its limp bodies off the floor to cover them with kisses?  I think if anyone else I know identifies, you do, because I’ve seen you take both sides. Is that everyone’s eternal struggle?  I don’t quite know what it is to be a man or to be a woman. I don’t know if I speak with words or with emotions, I don’t know if I look with words or with emotions. I’m afraid I’m quite changeable. What is certain, regardless, is that both their dreams I love instantly—and even their violent ends seem terribly merciful of Godard, because it would be much worse to led them languish in a courtroom.

But to the point: how should I be taking this film? intellectually or emotionally? All the essays in the world don’t change the fact that Brecht consistently found factory workers easily comprehending his plays while intellectuals got it wrong, and got it wrong, and got it wrong. They didn’t begin writing the screenplay for this until the day before shooting began. Yet some assert that every film of Godard’s deserves a book to dissect it. Does it? Or is that too simple and insulting? Is it supposed to be experienced and sensed, or is it supposed to be turned into words? is it supposed to be felt or reduced to concepts? is it meant for everyone or is it only for wealthy undergrads? What does it show me to be attainable in life? What’s most attractive and what’s worth sacrificing? Have I learned anything about myself? I hope so.

Could I have written this better? Absolutely? Could I have? No. I’ve totally failed.

—

For this I also read Review: [untitled], by Michael Klein. Film Quarterly. 1966. University of California Press, which was a bunch of shit, as most everything ever written about film is apt to be.

In the next thing I write I’ll be writing about Une Femme est une Femme—and I’ll write about the people who don’t deserve to enjoy French new wave cinema and why.

Some photographs from our trip to St. Andrews last December to visit Lani.

Some nice curtains in there.

This was quite magnificent, and in many ways very intimidating.

I wanted to catch the Sun.

One of them was kneeling, maybe wanting to take a nap, although it was too early in the day to be that tired. But who knows what stuff the waking thoughts and dreams of sheep are made of? I doubt if even Philip K. Dick knows. Maybe this one was just the laid-back contemplative type.

I think someone was about to descend the ladder when we passed by.

They looked like three very close friends. They’ve been through a lot together, I should think.

Lani

Jacq

A river of light.

I didn’t know of Brassai then.
I wish I could make something like Seville, 1952 someday.

Inside the British Golf Museum.

Robin Williams: “If ya want a linguistic adventure, go drinkin’ with a Scotsman. ‘Cause ya couldn’t f*****g understand them before… You land in Scotland and they’re going:

Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah?
Sure.
- Oh, f**k sure, eh!
Sure!
- Sure, you dumb f*****g b*****d.

You realize how drunk they get, they could wear a skirt and not care! And only they could invent a sport like golf.

Here’s my idea for a f*****g sport. I knock a ball in a gopher hole.
- Like pool?
F**k off pool. Not with a straight stick, with a little f****d up stick. I whack a ball, it goes in a gopher hole.
- Oh, you mean like croquet?
F**k croquet! I put the hole hundreds of yards away. Oh, fuck of ya! Big fun, yeah!
- Oh, like a bowling thing?
F**k no! Not straight. I put s**t in the way. Like trees and bushes and high grass. So you can lose you f*****g ball. And go hacking away with a f*****g tire iron. Whacking away, and each time you miss you feel like you’ll have a stroke. F**k that’s what we’ll call it, a stroke, cause each time you miss you feel like you’re gonna f*****g die. Oh great, oh and here’s the better part. F**k, this is brilliant! Right near the end, I’ll put a little flat piece with a little flag to give you f*****g hope. But then I’ll put a little pool and a sand box, to f**k with your ball again. Aye, you’ll be there cracking you a*s, j*****g away in the sand.
- And you do this one time?
F**k no! 18 f*****g times!”

The 18th Hole. This shot went in. I think that famous man approved.

We walked on the sands of West Sands and contemplated the waves and faced the wind. Some scenes from Chariots of Fire were filmed here.

Inside (or outside? No, that’s inside.) St. Andrews Cathedral.

I barely managed to make some street photographs.

He was another contemplative type.

I went back to the cathedral. I remember I had a hard time trying to fit this magnificent marvel into the frame with a 50mm on. But somehow I got one good image. And those birds cooperated mightily as well.

I was mainly concerned with the smoker, but I realised later that the other lady bears a remarkable resemblance to Sherilyn Fenn. I’ve always liked Sherilyn Fenn; I’ve seen her go through tough times and good times both. I had lots of sympathy for her and her sad fate, or was it not so sad, I can’t quite remember, it was circa 1990, in Meridian, felt her pain when she died by John Malkovich’s huge hands in Of Mice and Men, and exulted at how gracefully her beauty dealt with the passing of time when I saw her close to two decades later in Gilmore Girls.

Back again in Glasgow. After a fun-filled time away, one’s own bed beckons.

Nella mostra Picasso – Cézanne il dialogo a distanza di due artisti, protagonisti della svolta culturale che avvenne nel passaggio dall’Ottocento al Novecento

di Simona Maggiorelli

Cézanne Bagnanti

«Il rapporto di Picasso con Cézanne è un dialogo infinito, cominciato molto presto e proseguito fino alla morte dell’artista spagnolo», racconta Bruno Ely, direttore del musée Granet di Aix-en Provence dove, fino al 27 settembre, è aperta una rassegna dedicata ai due maestri. «Un dialogo che Picasso, di 42 anni più giovane, aveva  cominciato in gioventù durante il primo periodo espressionista e poi aveva continuato in quello rosa. Per arrivare poi alla svolta cubista e alle Demoiselles d’Avignon, un’opera che non sarebbe mai esistita senza le Grandi bagnanti di Cézanne». Per non dire, prosegue Ely, del Picasso collezionista (a cui la mostra dedica una sezione). «Picasso aveva acquistato tre opere importanti come Vista dall’Estaque, Le bagnanti e Château noir, fra le più belle a mio avviso del maestro di Aix.  Alla fine degli anni Cinquanta, poi, con la sua compagna Jacqueline  decise di trasferirsi nel castello di Vauvenargues. Scherzando diceva di essersi comprato la montagna Sainte Victoire in originale».

Strano personaggio Picasso. Lui che rivendicava di non avere padri in arte, diceva che Cézanne era stato «il suo unico e solo maestro», ammettendo di aver passato anni a studiare i suoi quadri, diventandone uno dei massimi conoscitori (così nei dialoghi con Brassaï). Temperamento e carattere diversissimo dal suo, Picasso riconosceva al pittore di Aix una ricerca che nessuno aveva mai fatto, una rivoluzione delle forme, che inaugurava una nuova strada nell’arte, fuori dalla mimesi della natura, aprendo la rigida gabbia razionale della prospettiva rinascimentale a una diversa profondità e a una pluralità di punti di vista.
Nel suo appartato studio di Aix-en Provence, Cézanne aveva dedicato tutto se stesso a questa ricerca di un diverso modo di rappresentare la realtà,  per come appariva all’artista. «Lavorava solo, senza allievi, senza ammirazione da parte della sua famiglia, senza l’incoraggiamento di giurie», annotava il filosofo Maurice Merleau-Ponty ne Il dubbio di Cézanne (in Senso e non senso, Il Saggiatore). E non mancarono gli attacchi feroci: pittura da «bottinaio ubriaco» scriveva nel 1905 un critico francese, mentre l’“amico” Zola  parlava di lui come di «un genio abortito». Invecchiando, lo stesso Cézanne cominciò a  pensare che la novità della sua pittura potesse essere dovuta solo a un «disordine della vista».

Nella lunga e variata sequenza di quadri che Cézanne dedicò alla Saint Victoire che svetta su Aix en Provence, invece, andò ben oltre il lavoro degli impressionisti che cercavano il vedere istantaneo, il flash, la piattezza dell’istante. Ma ancor più chiaramente si mosse nella direzione opposta a quella intrapresa da Monet che arriverà a dissolvere ogni forma nel colore. Inconsapevolmente (come ha notato per primo Merleau-Ponty) Cézanne arrivò a rappresentare sulla  tela il primo formarsi della visione come immagine indefinita che emerge dal progressivo aggregarsi di macchie di colore. è lo stesso processo della visione quello che Cézanne cerca di rappresentare. In questo modo introducendo nel quadro la durata, un tempo interiore specificamente umano.

Dopo di lui la pittura non avrebbe più potuto essere mera, accademica, registrazione del dato oggettivo o trascrizione di un ricordo cosciente. L’arte, per essere davvero tale, doveva essere creazione di immagine, a partire da una propria, personalissima, elaborazione dei rapporti con gli altri, a partire da un vissuto interiore. Picasso, forse più di ogni altro artista delle avanguardie storiche, intuì l’importanza di questa svolta. «Ciò che lo avvicinava particolarmente a Cézanne – nota ancora Bruno Ely – è che entrambi avevano trovato una propria visione in maniera antidogmatica, senza dipingere opere a tesi». E se su questa strada di “apertura all’irrazionale” anche Van Gogh e Matisse (seppur su piani diversi) avevano fatto un proprio originale percorso, a mettere in particolare sintonia Picasso con Cézanne fu il fatto che il maestro di Aix aveva realizzato la sua rivoluzionaria svolta attraverso una ricerca sulle forme più che sul colore.Detto altrimenti, anche se sommariamente, ad attrarre l’attenzione di Picasso sulle potenti nature morte di Cézanne fu il modo in cui lui trattava la forma-colore. Nei suoi quadri pesche e oggetti acquistano una straordinaria solidità e forza volumetrica, mentre la prospettiva ortogonale lascia il posto a un complesso intersecarsi di piani che si aprono e si chiudono in profondità.

Ma ancor più Picasso amava certi suoi ritratti in cui la figura di madame Cézanne, quella del figlio, oppure l’immagine apparentemente comune di due giocatori a carte appaiono sottilmente deformate, sfuggenti a una logica di proporzioni e misure, acquistando così un’espressività e un significato più allusivo e complesso. Picasso ne era rimasto colpito quando vide la retrospettiva che il Salon d’Automne dedicò a Cézanne nel 1907, a un anno dalla sua morte. Ma già nei primissimi del Novecento, appena arrivato a Parigi dalla Spagna, Picasso aveva cominciato a riflettere e a lavorare su quanto Cézanne aveva dipinto, ma anche annotato a latere nei quaderni: affermazioni come «la natura è all’interno» trovavano una particolare risonanza in Picasso che tentava di passare dalla deformazione onirica tipica delle inquiete figure del periodo blu alla violenta scomposizione cubista. Una scomposizione della figura che lasciava intravedere un’immagine fin lì invisibile. Linee spezzate e vertiginose che in opere come Les demoiselles del 1907 fanno emergere il contenuto e il movimento vitale di una forma latente.

In primo piano potenti immagini di donna costruite con triangoli e losanghe e che richiamano alla mente il celebre passo di una lettera di Cézanne in cui scriveva che, per trovare una nuova volumetria in pittura, bisogna «trattare la natura secondo il cilindro, la sfera, il cono». Passo di cui Braque e compagni fecero una sorta di manifesto cubista. Anche per questo sarebbe stato interessante poter vedere al musée Granet – nel dialogo che si squaderna in una cinquantina di opere dei due maestri – anche un confronto fra questo capolavoro di Picasso conservato a New York e le Les grandes baigneuses di Cézanne di Londra e di Philadelphia. Ma le complicate politiche dei prestiti internazionali non l’hanno consentito. In compenso in questa mostra di Aix si può confrontare dal vivo un primo piano di madame Cézanne e un possente ritratto cubista di Fernande Olivier. Si “toccano con mano” i debiti cézanniani del cubismo analitico nel Ritratto di Ambroise Vollard di Picasso appeso accanto a quello che gli fece il pittore francese. Ma soprattutto si può capire qualcosa di più di un quadro enigmatico  come Il ragazzo che conduce un cavallo (1905-6), opera dalla lunga gestazione ed evoluzione. All’epoca, con il nudo, una tavolozza quasi monocroma e il richiamo all’essenzialità dell’antico, Picasso cercava una via di uscita dalla teatralità e  dall’aneddotica del periodo rosa. Qui si realizza pienamente che la trovò non solo nel  rapporto con l’arte fenicia esposta al Louvre, ma anche e soprattutto nel rapporto con il Grande bagnante (1885)  di Cézanne.

da left-Avvenimenti 26 giugno 2009

When I arrived in Glasgow I had this persistent feeling that I wanted to shoot photographs of people on the street. I did not know how to go about it; it was just this amorphous sentiment that hung around in my mind, a shade, a thought of a thought. I was much too shy and lacked the requisite courage to shoot strangers.

Around this time, Totz pointed me in the direction of Street Photography for the Purist by Chris Weeks. Although Chris Weeks stipulated a lot of things that I’m not even sure I can follow at any time in my life, I felt that I understood when he exhorted one to develop the eye of a spy, a ghost. That, together with reading wikipedia and the Street and Documentary forum in photo.net helped me to imagine myself in the street, shooting.

Now I’m reading Bystander: A History of Street Photography by Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz and I am educated even more. From the Introduction:

” … For the most part, however, the photographers discussed in these pages have tried to work without being noticed by their subjects. They have taken pictures of people who are going about their business unaware of the photographer’s presence. They have made candid pictures of everyday life in the street. That, at its core, is what street photography is.”

” … The street as it is defined here might be a crowded boulevard or a country lane, a park in the city or a boardwalk at the beach, a lively cafe or a deserted hallway in a tenement, or even a subway car or the lobby of a theater. It is any public place where a photographer could take pictures of subjects who were unknown to him and, whenever possible, unconscious of his presence.”

I thought it might be a good idea to make a “brief history of street photography”; something I can come back to from time to time to remind myself of the great men and women who made me want to do even just a tiny fraction of what they did. They have scaled the lofty heights I aspire to, hopefully for as long as I am able.

Nicephore Niepce (1765–1833) invented photography.

Louis Daguerre (1787–1851) invented the daguerreotype.

William Fox Talbot (1800–1877) invented the talbotype.

Rev. Calvert Jones (1804-1877)

Charles Marville (1816-1879)

Charles Negre (1820–1880)

Felix Bonfils (1831-1885)

John Thomson (1837–1921)

Eugene Atget (1857–1927)

Charles Van Schaick (1852-?)

Berenice Abbott (1898–1991)

Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946)

Chusseau Flaviens (?-?)

Count Giuseppe Primoli (1851-1927)

E.J. Constant Puyo (1857–1933)

Dallett Fuguet (?-?)

Felice Beato (1833-1907)

Paul Strand (1890–1976)

Joseph Byron (1847-1923) and Percy Byron (1878–1959)

Frank Sutcliffe (1853–1941)

Thomas Annan (1829-1887)

Lewis W. Hine (1874–1940)

Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894–1986)

Alice Austen (1866–1952)

Andre Kertesz (1894–1985)

Jacob Riis (1849-1914)

Ralph Steiner (1899–1986)

Robert Doisneau (1912-1994)

Brassai (1899–1984)

Roger Mayne (b. 1929)

Bill Brandt (1904–1983)

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004)

Lucien Aigner (1901–1999)

Kurt Hutton (1893-1960)

Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1902–2002)

Josef Koudelka (b. 1938)

Roman Vishniac (1897–1990)

Aaron Siskind (1903-1991)

Dorothea Lange (1895–1965)

Ben Shahn (1898–1969)

Helen Levitt (1913–2009)

Max Yavno (1911-1985)

Dan Weiner (1919-1959)

Walker Evans (1903–1975)

Morris Engel (1918 – 2005)

Weegee (1899–1968)

Marjory Collins (1912-1985)

John Vachon (1914–1975)

Lisette Model (1901–1983)

Louis Faurer (1916-2001)

Rene Burri (b. 1933)

Lee Friedlander (b. 1934)

William Klein (b. 1928)

Robert Frank (b. 1924)

Garry Winogrand (1928–1984)

Joel Meyerowitz (b. 1938)

Tod Papageorge (b. 1940)

John Gutmann (1905-1998)

Ray Metzker (b. 1931)

Harry Callahan (1912–1999)

Diane Arbus (1923–1971)

Raghubir Singh (1942-1999)

Jindrich Streit (b. 1946)

Jeff Mermelstein (b. 1957)

Viktor Kolar (b. 1941)

Elliott Erwitt (b. 1928)

Daido Moriyama (b. 1938)

Tom Arndt (b. 1944)

Bruce Gilden (b. 1946)

Richard Kalvar (b. 1944)

Bryn Campbell

Nils Jorgensen

Nick Turpin (b. 1969)

Jeffrey Ladd (b. 1968)

Gus Powell (b. 1974)

Chris Weeks

Edmund Leveckis

Orville Robertson

grant .

Ko-ji Yamasaki

Tod Gross

Alan Dejecacion

Robert Vincent

Tony Remington

Luis Liwanag

Joven pareja usando un traje
dos en uno, en el Bal de la Montagne,
Sainte-Geneviève, 1931

 ”La noche sugiere, no enseña.
La noche nos encuentra y nos sorprende por su extrañeza; ella libera en nosotros las fuerzas que, durante el día, son dominadas por la razón…”

Brassaï

Foto y texto  extraído de El Ángel Caído

I promise this will be a long post. 

What is it? We often take photographs, and perhaps even more often are captured in images ourselves, but how often do many of us ever stop to consider what photography really means?

Perhaps one of the most famous photographers in my eyes, Ansel Adams, summed a great deal of what photography is and means in one sentence:

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it”

I have pondered long and hard on the true meaning of this phrase, simply because I believe it has more than one meaning. But really it only means one thing; You, as the photographer, create and design an image. In reality, the camera is irrelevant. We use a camera simply as an aid to capture a moment in time, but all we need is our minds and imaginations to “capture” an image in our memory forever. As photographers, we are constantly forcing the world into a small viewfinder, but within this viewfinder we are constructed and creating images.

But why do we take photographs? At the dawn of photography, it was used simply as a recording medium, something to capture images of far away places or scenes for the public. It was used to collect and record facts; images of locations of scientific interest to geologists and cartographers etc etc. 

Now however, many images are taken to record holidays, school trips, friends and family etc. A fraction of all photographers use photography creatively, to express themselves and use their imagination. This perhaps is the root of all photography.

Photography has literally exploded over the last few years for one crucial factor; digitalisation. I really believe that the reason the hobby has become even more popular worldwide is because the cost has been radically reduced, and the ease of use has been increased. People dont want to play around with shutter speeds and apertures and ISO ratings, they want instantaneous images to record a moment. People dont often bother to consider better vantage points or juxtapose. Many terabytes of data have been wasted this way.

You see, film was a match for the creative passion of a photographer. Because of the 36 shots limit per roll, and the overall cost per roll, you had to conserve yourself. You had to make every shot count as much as the last one. The overall quality of images taken with film is generally higher than that of digital, simply because the thinking time per image has been reduced. With digital, there are hardly any extra costs. You can take as many images as you like. Sadly, it’s for this reason that the level of film use has been cut down to its current low.

To me, photography is a way of showing a place/person/object, in a moment of time, and in a particular way. I thoroughly believe that photography is a almost solely personal experience, in that images you take are significant to you, the photographer (with perhaps the exception of a person/select few who are with you at time of capture (or “creation” as Adams thought of it))

Perhaps I am a photographic purist, in the sense that I believe a good image is one with minimal post processing, perhaps taken with care and consideration.

But in the same way, I enjoy lomo style images. I enjoy the spontaneity, the eye popping colour and often blurred and less than perfect focusing and juxtapose. 

Who can really say what a photographic “purist” is anyway? Pure in what sense? There is no right or wrong way to take an image, just your own way, whatever way you want to take an image. 

So know we come to opinion. The photographic world, which is in effect, a part of the art world, is rife with opinion. The thing is, as I mentioned earlier, all opinion of images is moot. Images can be reviewed by all the critics in the world, but all of their individual opinions are worthless in the sense that images are personal creations. The fact that someone appreciates an image is one thing, but a personal who doesn’t cannot say anything, because they were not there at the instant of capture, and they dont know the photographers thoughts or mindset. 

I hate, truly hate people who judge images. Every image in its own right is good, (and I know this is somewhat contradictory of what I said earlier, but then I was referring to fine art photography) so I cannot see the need for people to bitch and complain about images and the techniques/styles used on them. Maybe I am a little hypocritical, I hate overdone HDR for instance. But that is the world of photography; a hideously convoluted and opinionated place. And we love it.

Photographers like Brassai and Cartier-Bresson grabbed this opinionated hobby by the horns, and used it to create images that deliberately split the viewers, and forced opinions of situations. Street photography is perhaps a good example of this. 

I could go on for hours talking about what photography has done and is doing to society, and complain about know-it-all photographers willing to pick arguments with anyone about anything photographically related. But I dont have time, and besides, this post has dragged on long enough. I hope you, the reader, can appreciate how little this post has actually touched upon the iceberg that is the world of photography, and that you read this to the end.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Edward Steichen, one of the world’s most reknowned photographers (see his photograph “The Pond – Moonlight”) who once said:

“No photographer is as good as the simplest camera”

(Hmm, as per usual with these kinds of posts, I have left this a bit open ended with no definitive conclusion. What I think I’m trying to say is that photography is incredibly multi-faceted in its nature, and that for every photograph, there are an unlimited number of opinions and thoughts, for each person sees it a different way. So no matter how photography is described, it is never quite right for every single person, if that makes sense.)

Vasculhando o Google Livros encontrei alguns livros interessantes e de fácil consulta (embora não completos por questões de direito autoral). Entre os livros, o Novo manual de fotografia. Guia completo para todos os formatos (O) escrito por  John Hedgecoe  é um dos mais interessantes que vi e é bem didático. Outro livro que recomendo é de Thales Trigo cujo título é Equipamento Fotográfico: Teoria e Prática. é um bom começo para se iniciar pesquisas ou até mesmo, relembrar aprendizados.

Fora os livros comentados acima, trago uma lista dos principais livros postados no Google Livros:

Equipamento Fotográfico: Teoria e Prática

Por Thales Trigo

Novo manual de fotografia. Guia completo para todos os formatos (O) – John Hedgecoe

A Câmera – Por Ansel Adams

Fotógrafo o olhar, a técnica e o trabalho – Por Senac

Revelação em Preto e Branco – Por Millard W. L. Schisler, Elisabete Savio

A Cópia – Por Ansel Adams

O Negativo – Por Ansel Adams

Fotografia: usos e funções no século XIX‎

de Annateresa Fabris, Solange Ferraz de Lima

Fotografia & história‎

de Boris Kossoy

Imagens da fotografia brasileira‎

de Simonetta Persichetti, Mário Cravo Neto

A fotografia no Império‎

de Pedro Karp Vasquez

Retratos de família: leitura da fotografia histórica‎

de Miriam Moreira Leite

A fotografia moderna no Brasil‎ – Página 7

de Helouise Costa, Renato Rodrigues, Renato Rodrigues da Silva

O fotográfico‎ – Página 201

de Etienne Samain

8 X Fotografia‎

de Vários autores

Proust e a fotografia‎

de Brassaí

A ruptura da fotografia nos anos 50‎

de José Oiticica Filho

Hay prendas que consiguen resurgir regularmente como auténticos must have. Son las piezas clásicas, intemporales, básicas, que por su naturaleza simple seducen a sus adeptas. La camiseta marinera pertenece sin duda a esta categoria.

Fotografia de Terry Richardson para la editorial À toutes jambes. Vogue París, Junio/Julio 09.

Si bien hoy en dia podemos encontrar múltiples modelos de marineras, su primera descripción se remonta al 27 de marzo del 1858 donde bajo la pluma del almirante Hameli aparecen publicadas en el boletín oficial de la marina las especificaciones de la camiseta: “para el cuerpo, 21 rallas blancas que deberán ser dos veces más anchas que las 20 o 21 rallas azúl índigo”.

Pero para entender como la marinera se ha convertido en un clásico, tenemos que remontarnos a los orígenes de la tendencia marinera de calle que se encuentran en la mismísima reina Victoria de Inglaterra (1819-1901) quien, al encargar un traje marinero para su hijo, el príncipe Eduardo, con el fin de exaltar así el poder de la Royal Navy, popularizó esta tendencia que colonizó la Europa continental y el Reino Unido.
Alberto Eduardo, príncipe de Gales en traje marinero (1846). Obra de Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

A finales del s.XIX el uniforme de marinero se convierte en el vestido fetiche para las comuniones y para el vestuario de los niños de buena família, como tan bien lo refleja el personaje del joven Tadzio (encarnación del ideal de belleza) en la película “Morte a Venezia” de Luchino Visconti, adaptación cinematográfica de la novela homónima de Thomas Mann.

Por lo que respecta a las mujeres, es bastante difícil encontrar piezas de estilo marinero en el vestuario femenino. La adopción de prendas marineras por parte de las mujeres es vista como un símbolo de emancipación, de liberación y de provocación.

Conchita et les marins, place d’Italie. 1933 (circa). Foto de Brassaï.

Con el nacimiento de la estética andrógina a principios del siglo XX, las mujeres emancipadas adoptan el pantalón y la vestimenta marinera, como Georges Sand o Colette. Piezas que no tardan en propagarse gracias al auge de las actividades de recreo, ofreciendo una alternativa  más comfortable que los toilettes. Gabrielle Chanel además dotó a la marinera de una materia práctica y funcional: el jersey. Aunque la auténtica revolución sin duda fué el traje de baño marinero, que llegando por encima de la rodilla, perimitió que las mujeres por fin mostrasen sus piernas.

A la izquierda, la escritora francesa Colette ataviada con un traje y camiseta marinera. A la derecha, Coco Chanel en su villa “La Pausa” Côte d’Azur, años 30.

A partir de este momento la marinière no ha dejado de tentar a los grandes costureros como Yves Saint Laurent, Yohji Yamamoto, o Christian Dior, que no han cesado de revisitar el guardaropas marinero al servicio de la mujer,  actualizándolo constantemente. Con Jean-Paul Gaultier, la marinière se convierte además en su sello.

Campaña publicitaria primavera 2009 de Jean Paul Gaultier

Lo cierto es que cada primavera la prensa consagra una u otra editorial a la marinera, insistiendo en que está en el top de las tendencias, cuando realmente se trata sencillamente de un básico y su gran fuerza reside precisamente en estar siempre de moda. Esta temporada no ha sido diferente de las otras, con Dolce and Gabbana y Balmain revisitándola.

Y para la primavera/verano 2010 está previsto que así sea otra vez, o almenos esto es lo que podemos intuir con la colección crucero 2010 de Chanel presentada precisamente en la playa del Lido de Venecia el pasado mes de mayo en una pasarela destinada a homenajear a esta bella ciudad italiano y a sus personajes célebres, como Peggy Guggenheim (las pelucas de las modelos reproducen su peinado).

Imagen de la colección crucero 2010 de Chanel.

La marinera, prenda versátil por excelencia, que podemos llevar en cualquier época del año con la certeza de que cuando compramos una probablemente la podremos lucir durante 10 o más años, acepta múltiples combinaciones y se puede llevar en todo tipo de ocasiones.

Fotografias via The Sartorialist

Debajo de un blazer, con minifalda y tacones nos puede servir tanto para una jornada de trabajo como para salir de noche. Si queremos darle un toque más informal la podemos combinar con leggins o con unos carrot pants. También se puede llevar el fin de semana con unas converse blancas y unos shorts. De todos modos, al ser una pieza clásica podemos mezclarla con otros estampados porque se presta a doto tipo de juegos. Además no podemos olvidar que se puede llevar perfectamente a cualquier edad… solo tenemos que ver lo bién que le sentaba a Picasso.

Para observar de cerca la relación entre los uniformes de la Marina y la moda el Musée National de la Marine de París presenta hasta el 26 de julio de 2009 la exposición Les Marins Font la Mode donde se pueden ver piezas pertenecientes a la colección del Museo de la Marina al lado de creaciones emblemáticas de grandes diseñadores franceses que a lo largo de la historia se han inspirado en este estilo.

Y no nos podemos perder el libro Éloge de la marinière de las Éditions Palantine, un auténtico tributo a la marinière donde aparecen hasta 50 de fotografias en blanco y negro de Brigitte Bardot, Marylin Monroe, Yves Montand, Charlotte Gainsbourg y muchos personajes más que han lucido esta prenda.

Llegados a este punto, a una le entran ganas de ponerse la marinera, dirigirse a la playa al atardecer escuchando el adaggio de la 5a simfonía de Mahler y releer Muerte en Venecia de Thomas Mann.

Brassaï. Môme Bijou. Bar de la Lune, Montmartre, 1932

I

    Las fuerzas del lenguaje son las damas solitarias, desoladas, que cantan a través de mi voz que escucho a lo lejos. Y lejos, en la negra arena, yace una niña densa de música ancestral. ¿Dónde la verdadera muerte? He querido iluminarme a la luz de mi falta de luz. Los ramos se mueren en la memoria. La yacente anida en mí con su máscara de loba. La que no pudo más e imploró llamas y ardimos. 

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II

    Cuando a la casa del lenguaje se le vuela el tejado y las palabras no guarecen, yo hablo. 
    Las damas de rojo se extraviaron dentro de sus máscaras aunque regresarán para sollozar entre flores. 

No es muda la muerte. Escucho el canto de los enlutados sellar las hendiduras del silencio. Escucho tu dulcísimo llanto florecer mi silencio gris. 

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III

    La muerte ha restituido al silencio su prestigio hechizante. Y yo no diré mi poema y yo he de decirlo. Aún si el poema (aquí, ahora) no tiene sentido, no tiene destino.

(Alejandra Pizarnik, de La extracción de la piedra de la locura, 1968)