Thoughts on Bresson's exhibit at MOMA

Henry Cartier-Bresson’s work takes you into a journey of human ugliness, metaphorically speaking. He successfully targets the upper class directly and indirectly by presenting their luxurious lifestyle as well as by presenting the struggles the lower class faces on daily bases. As I approached each photograph, I noticed that his attitude is somewhat sarcastic. A photograph depicting two Italian peasants carrying a heavy portrait of an “important figure” (in terms of monetary value) is a great metaphor for human life itself. He captured the brutality of the street within an even more brutal frame (such would be the case of photographs of the elite positioned adjacent to the have-nots. The conflict of social classes creates within the frame some sort of collision). Female beauty dies because the “ugly” (tired, dirty, peasants’ faces) becomes the new beautiful. In the photograph of the wall of windows, each window may represent the individuals below and I’m not sure whether the wall is a mockery on the stillness of human life.