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 p.2 #3 · Does anyone know how Harry Gruyaert produces his color images? | |
tunisia wrote:
Hi Chiron,
Thanks for this link and the conversation. Never saw his stuff and like what I've seen.
Now a caveat, I didn't see all of his works, but they remind me in a sense of early Kandinsky and the Russian Constructivists. While Kandinsky's works were abstract, they were concerned with studying emotionality - what he called spirituallity - of color and its effects on the viewer. t. His treatise, Concerning the Spiritual in Art came to mind viewing thess images.
Mind you, I'm not saying his photographs "look" like a Kandinsky, just his use of color interaction and and emotion.
The works made me think of the Constructivists because of the heavy graphic elements. Very strong visually but again nothing like their work which was utilitarian. Rather, I feel an emotional and maybe intellectual connection among all these artists.
Any way, might just be me and not what he is actually about.
Great conversation. Love these kinds of discussions.
Joe D  ...Show more →
Hi Tunisia.
I would not have thought of the connection of Gruyaert to Kandinsky and the Constructivists, but now that you say it, I think that you make a good and interesting point. There is no question that Gruyaert is interested in the emotional and the spiritual effects of color, as is certainly the case with Kandinsky, and that much of his work has a strong graphical element that is created through he juxtaposition of strong colors. It is also the case that Gruyaert is interested in finding beauty in ordinary, everyday situations, and I think this is also an echo of the Constructivists' interest in the urban and industrial environment. But Gruyaert is much less ideological and political than the Constructivists.
Gruyaert's images also seem much more intimate, factual, gentle, and overtly emotional than do the works of Kandinsky and the Constructivists. He has been compared to Edward Hopper, which seems right to me.
I also think that his images are much less solid than K or the Cs. Many of his photographs are elisions in the sense that something is only half-seen or not seen--partial reflections, blurred figures in motion, masks or faces turned away, partial views through a window or down a street. But very rich, evocative, and atmospheric in a way the more cerebral K and the Cs are usually not. There is nothing industrial or worker-like about Gruyaert. Time is also an element that seems visible in many of his photos--breezes, movements, transitions, blurs; K and the Cs usually seem timeless or even still.
But I do think you are right in thinking of him as an artist and also in relation to painting, as I think would also be true of the photographer to whom I would most compare him, Saul Leiter. His being so obviously an artist rather than a journalist caused a fight within Magnum about admitting him.
I'm glad to hear that you enjoy these kinds of conversations about photography! I have four of Gruyaert's books and I think they are all good, but the recent (2024) Thames & Hudson edition of Morocco is, I think, amazingly beautiful, with images that are like perfectly ripe fruit. It is also reasonably priced and has a lot of pages, all of which are exceptionally well-printed. Each photo is fully on one page (never across the gutter) and almost every image is faced by a blank white page rather than another photo. It is a perfect way to view photographs.
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