Henri Cartier-Bresson
[Photographer and painter, b. 1908, Chanteloup, France, d. 2004, Paris.]
The adventurer in me felt obliged to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world.
Man Ray (Emanuel Radnitsky)
[Artist, b. 1890, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, d. 1976, Paris.]
I have freed myself from the sticky medium of paint and am working directly with light itself.
(On “Rayographs,” his term for photograms.)
John Ruskin
[Artist, writer and poet, b. 1819, London, d. 1900, Coniston Water, England.]
I tell you (dogmatically, if you like to call it so, knowing it well) a square inch of man’s engraving is worth all the photographs that were ever dipped in acid... Believe me, photography can do against line engraving just what Madame Tussaud’s wax-work can do against sculpture. That and no more.
(1865)
Edward Steichen
[Photographer and curator, b. 1879, Luxembourg, Germany, d. 1973, West Redding, Connecticut.]
Every other artist begins [with] a blank canvas, a piece of paper... the photographer begins with the finished product.
Chuck Close
[Artist, b. 1940, Monroe, Washington, lives in New York.]
The thing that interests me about photography, and why it’s different from all other media, is that it’s the only medium in which there is even the possibility of an accidental masterpiece.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
[Photographer and painter, b. 1908, Chanteloup, France, d. 2004, Paris.]
All I care about these days is painting—photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.
Edvard Munch
[Artist, b. 1863, Loten, Hedmark, Norway, d. 1944, Oslo, Norway.]
The camera cannot compete with painting so long as it cannot be used in heaven and in hell.
Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
People believe in the reality of photographs, but not in the reality of paintings. That gives photographers an enormous advantage. Unfortunately, photographers also believe in the reality of photographs.
