Enjoying life along the banks of a river is a common trope throughout French art, including important works by Gorges Seurat, Claude Monet, and, as seen here, Henri Cartier-Bresson. In images such as this, Cartier-Bresson broadened the visual lexicon and standing of photograph by combining motifs and styles from a variety of art historical cannons, highlighting the splendor of a leisurely sunny day spent by the river.
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s intuition is evident throughout his native France where he captured career defining images, including Rue Mouffetard (lot 2) and Hyères (lot 17), among many others. Instilled with an ever present joie de vivre, Cartier-Bresson’s pictures of France create a collective portrait of the country throughout the twentieth century, invigorating every setting, from the rural paysage in Briançon (lot 20), to the bustling streets of Paris. Whether photographing at home or abroad, Cartier-Bresson believed that the strongest images came from a familiarity of place, and it is perhaps the intimate knowledge of the well-worn streets of Paris that allow the photographer’s keen eye to so skillfully capture the city. Notably, Cartier-Bresson’s family home was located on rue de Lisbonne, nearby Gare Saint-Lazare, where one of his most recognized photographs, Behind the Gare Saint- Lazare (lot 16), was taken very early in his career, in 1932.