In another letter from BN to HCB dated 10 Feb-
ruary 1951: ‘‘I haven’t forgotten, and neither has
[Richard] Simon, about our plans for a book.’’
Richard Simon of Simon and Schuster, also an ama-
teur photographer, collaborated with the art critic
and publisher, Teriade, to realize the book. Teriade
was a long-time friend and supporter of Cartier-
Bresson. In the late 1930s, he had planned to publish
a book of photographs by Cartier-Bresson and sev-
eral other photographers including Brassaı ̈ and
Andre ́ Kerte ́sz but the war made it impossible. In
1952, with the assistance of Marguerite Lang, Ter-
iade compiled the photographs, prepared the layout,
and published the book in Paris in a style and format
similar to his deluxe art review,Verve.Withthe
book in preparation, Teriade and Simon pushed
Cartier-Bresson to put down in words his approach
to photography. That lucid text has been nearly as
influential as the photographs in the book.
In formulating his ideas, Cartier-Bresson drew on
his studies in the 1920s with the cubist painter and
theorist, Andre Lhote, who stressed the balance of
compositions based on the golden section. He was
also inspired by Maurice Tabard’s texts on geometric
composition in photography.
This book of photographs and its text had an
immediate and far-reaching impact on numerous
photographers ranging from Elliott Erwitt to Wil-
liam Eggleston. The book was reviewed by such
disparate artists as Walker Evans and Aaron Sis-
kind. In addition to being one of the most important
influences on photography for decades, ‘‘the decisive
moment’’ quickly became something to react against
as well. After Cartier-Bresson’s book, the next most
important and influential publication of the mid-
twentieth century was Robert Frank’sThe Ameri-
cans.It is filled with images that, in opposition to
Cartier-Bresson’s, might be characterized as random
moments, non-events depicted in ways that seem off-
balance. Horizon lines are tilted, figures are cut off
at the edges of the frame or partially obscured by
objects in the picture. The world appears to be
glanced at quickly and without artifice. Frank
believed that ‘‘the decisive moment’ was an artificial
way of seeing, that perfect arrangements of peak
moments were removed from real life and were in
some way dishonest. He said, ‘‘I don’t want that in
photography, the world moves very rapidly and not
necessarily in perfect images.’’ There are some skep-
tics who say that the only ‘‘decisive moment’’ occurs
when the time comes to decide which one of the
many exposures to make into the finished print.
This term and the book’s title owe their distinctive
name to the fact that the original title selected for the
simultaneous French publication of the book,
Images la sauvette, is impossible to translate ade-
quately into English. According to Cartier-Bresson
it is roughly equivalent to, ‘‘Images on the Sly.’’
Richard Simon of Simon and Schuster derived the
English title for the book from the quote from Car-
dinal de Retz that Cartier-Bresson selected to be
placed on the page before the beginning of his text:
‘‘There is nothing in this world that does not have a
decisive moment.’’
StuartAlexanderFurther Reading
Assouline, Pierre.Cartier-Bresson: L’oeil du si cle. Paris:
Editions Plon, 1999.
Cartier-Bresson, Henri.Images la sauvette. Paris: Editions
Verve, 1952; asThe Decisive Moment,New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1952.
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image & the World,
London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
Hofstadter, Dan. ‘‘Profiles: Stealing a March on the World
—I,’’New Yorker, 65, no. 36 (23 October 1989) 59–93.
Hofstadter, Dan. ‘‘Profiles: Stealing a March on the World—
II.’’New Yorker, 65, no. 37 (30 October 1989) 49–73.
‘‘Photography and Time.’’ inThe Art of Photography. New
York: Time-Life Books, 1971, 112.DECONSTRUCTION
Over the last four decades, the term deconstruction
has infiltrated academic fields, notably philosophy
and literary criticism. Deconstructive thinking has
partially transformed architectural practice, theo-
logical inquiry, and popular culture. The thinker
responsible for the term, Jacques Derrida, argues
that deconstruction occurs in the works of Karl
Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the myriad writersDECONSTRUCTION