Lisbon

Date

1955

Creator

As the miniature handheld camera became common for photographers in the field, Henri Cartier-Bresson established himself as master of candid photography. "To me," he famously wrote, "photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression." In Lisbon, Cartier-Bresson visited the church of Santa Maria at Belém, and found this woman kneeling at an open, prie-dieu-style confessional. She appears slim and willowy, while the priest seems robust, and the pyramidal shape of their combined forms points heavenward. The panel between confessor and priest is thin, but the column that rises from its peak accelerates an upward thrust. from Touchstones of the Twentieth Century: A History of Photography at the University of Notre Dame (exhibition, 2020-21)