Trieste

Henri Cartier-Bresson French

Not on view

In this early work, made just two years after he acquired his first 35mm Leica camera, Cartier-Bresson captures a scene of formal poetry and evocative mystery on a beach in Trieste, Italy, the site of one of his many travels in those years. Punctuated by the upright verticals of a tree and a brick tower, the horizontal expanses of sky and lawn are mirrored in the languorous pose of the outstretched figure. Suggesting calm and repose, the scene and the figure’s averted face nevertheless contain a disquieting note. Cartier-Bresson would continue to explore such themes throughout his long career, finding the surreal and the discordant within seemingly ordinary moments.

Trieste, Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, Chanteloup-en-Brie 1908–2004 Montjustin), Gelatin silver print

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