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I am familiar with the work of the photographer called Brassai, but recently came across a copy of the book "Brassai the Monograph" at my Monroe Branch of the Sno-isle Library and was enchanted once again. I was impressed by the width and depth of his art. The volume is filled with iconic photographs. He was a pioneering photographer who worked in other media, drawing, sculpture, painting. Brassai worked in the creative firestorm that was Paris in the '20's.
In the Monograph there are a series of essays and articles. One that particularly spoke to me was written by Brassai's good friend Henry Miller. In this essay Miller christened Brassai "The Eye of Paris". I really liked the opening paragraph of Millers essay;
"Brassai has the rare gift which so many artist despise - normal vision. He has no need to distort or deform, no need to lie or to preach. He would not alter the living arrangement of the world one iota; he sees the world precisely as it is and as few men in the world see it because seldom do we encounter a human being endowed with normal vision. Everything to which his eye attaches itself acquires value and significance, a value and significance, I might say, heretofore avoided or ignored. The fragment, the defect, the common-place - he detects in them what there is of novelty or perfection. He explores with equal patience, equal interest, a crack in the wall or the panorama of a city. Seeing becomes an end in itself, For Brassai is an eye, a living eye".
*Written by Henry Miller in 1933,"The Eye of Paris" was first published in the Chicago Globe in November 1937.
I really like, "Seeing becomes an end in itself".
I found this site with more on Brassai.
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