The great humanist photographer who immortalized Parisian street life
Excerpt from the book 'Robert Doisneau' by Jean-Claude Gautrand
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Doisneau's images have aged little if at all, while many other ostensibly more modern photographers have suffered heavily from the passage of time. His authenticity is present like a watermark in each of his images; each is a veritable self-portrait of the man I knew, warm, subtle, modest, respectful of others and, above all, full of love of his neighbour. His sincerity has always counterbalanced any naturalistic overtones, while his sensitivity transformed the putative banality of the situations that his matchless eye discovered. `My little universe, which has not been much photographed, has taken on such an exotic aspect that it is now the preserve of astonishing life-forms. They don't make me laugh, not at all... even though I have a profound desire to keep myself entertained, and have been entertained, all my life. I have made a little theatre for myself'. And Doisneau, who is neither blind nor naïve, has never stopped writing little story-images for this theatre. There are now more than four hundred thousand pictures to testify to his perambulations and discoveries. He is the true piéton de Paris, and his miraculous catch has always been made in the living waters of the quotidian.
The world that he seeks to convey is ultimately `a world... in which people would be likeable, in which I shall find the tenderness that I should like to feel. My photos are a sort of proof that this world can exist... Ultimately, there is nothing more subjective than the lens, we don't show the world the way it is'. This, then, was world he sought when, day after day, he rescued these 'dried flowers' from the dustbins of his time. They ornament the backdrop of his little theatre, a theatre now haunted by the mocking spectre of Doisneau himself, who died on 1 April, 1994.
Page [1] [2]
Page [1] [2]
Doisneau's images have aged little if at all, while many other ostensibly more modern photographers have suffered heavily from the passage of time. His authenticity is present like a watermark in each of his images; each is a veritable self-portrait of the man I knew, warm, subtle, modest, respectful of others and, above all, full of love of his neighbour. His sincerity has always counterbalanced any naturalistic overtones, while his sensitivity transformed the putative banality of the situations that his matchless eye discovered. `My little universe, which has not been much photographed, has taken on such an exotic aspect that it is now the preserve of astonishing life-forms. They don't make me laugh, not at all... even though I have a profound desire to keep myself entertained, and have been entertained, all my life. I have made a little theatre for myself'. And Doisneau, who is neither blind nor naïve, has never stopped writing little story-images for this theatre. There are now more than four hundred thousand pictures to testify to his perambulations and discoveries. He is the true piéton de Paris, and his miraculous catch has always been made in the living waters of the quotidian.
The world that he seeks to convey is ultimately `a world... in which people would be likeable, in which I shall find the tenderness that I should like to feel. My photos are a sort of proof that this world can exist... Ultimately, there is nothing more subjective than the lens, we don't show the world the way it is'. This, then, was world he sought when, day after day, he rescued these 'dried flowers' from the dustbins of his time. They ornament the backdrop of his little theatre, a theatre now haunted by the mocking spectre of Doisneau himself, who died on 1 April, 1994.
Page [1] [2]
Robert Doisneau
Flexicover, 14 x 19.5 cm (5.5 x 7.7 in.), 192 pages
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$ 9.99
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$ 9.99
The life and work of the great humanist photographer
Children in Place Hébert, Paris 18e, 1957