Three major exhibitions are honoring Denis Brihat this month, celebrating what many consider to be the last monument of French photography. The acclaimed photographer, known for his extraordinary character and rare humanity, represents what was once called with deep respect and admiration a true liberal - a person embodying boundless tolerance, generosity, respect, and culture.
Jean-Jacques Naudet, who has developed a close friendship with Brihat and his wife Solange through their shared proximity in the Luberon region, describes their regular lunches as marvels. Naudet jokes that if Denis were a few years younger, his own wife would undoubtedly have left him to pursue the charming photographer. The personal connection extends to Brihat's artistic circle, as evidenced in his latest portfolio "The Friends of Bonnieux," which features a portrait of Julien Levy, the pioneering photo gallery owner who was the first and greatest photography gallerist in New York during the 1930s and 1940s.
Brihat's influence intersected with other photography luminaries, including the possibility of crossing paths with Alexey Brodovitch, another monument of photography who became a New Yorker by adoption. The current special edition celebrating Brihat's work was made possible through the collaboration of several key figures: Didier Brousse, Héloïse Conésa, Patrick Clamaron, Nico Foss, and Solange Brihat herself.
Héloïse Conésa from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) has written extensively about Brihat's artistic philosophy, describing the experience of viewing his photographs as truly fascinating. She emphasizes that beyond his prodigious knowledge of silver-based photography techniques, viewers become captivated by the radiant beauty of nature as transformed by his unique vision. Conésa notes the audacity of Brihat's artistic stance, particularly his choice to diverge from the humanist photography movement of his era, which focused on snapshots and empathy in everyday life.
Instead of following conventional paths, Brihat chose to question the very nature of photography by enriching it with methodical poetry. His approach involved slow variations around simple subjects - a lemon, a kiwi, a cherry tree, a mushroom - creating brilliant visual compositions with silver-beaded materials. This singular artistic journey, pursued from his base on the Claparèdes plateau, was so distinctive that it opened new pathways for other photographers to explore.
Brihat was among the first photographers to propose that photography should claim its place on gallery walls, advocating for the medium to be viewed on a grand scale as a form of artistic freedom. He believed photography should liberate itself from being confined to books and assert its rightful place on picture rails alongside paintings. To achieve this elevation, he emphasized the medium's rarity by adorning his works with various chemical processes including sulfur, iron-vanadium, and gold treatments, creating images designed to captivate viewers completely.
Despite often being characterized as living like a hermit for choosing the landscapes of Lubéron over the bustling energy of Paris, and organizing photography workshops at his home that some described as requiring participants to enter photography as one enters religion, Conésa clarifies that there is no dogmatism in Brihat's approach. Rather than exhibiting grandiloquence, he pursues a maieutic method - a form of teaching that draws out each budding photographer's originality and helps them express their unique vision.
Conésa describes Brihat as a warm individual possessing great culture and infinite delicacy, someone who successfully reconciles seemingly opposing elements: the subtle with the refined, the frugal with the sumptuous, formal rigor with visual lyricism. This harmonious balance allows him to extract the extraordinary from the mundane, transforming simple subjects into profound artistic statements.
The BnF exhibition showcases several remarkable examples of Brihat's transformative vision. Visitors will discover an eggplant presented in majesty, delicately nibbled by a snail - possibly the same snail that appears coiled in the hollow of an orchard pear in another print. The exhibition features cut truffles whose natural convolutions become palpitating vessels, an onion presented sometimes naked and sometimes clothed, and a poppy resembling an eye open to the world with its iris shooting forth curious pistils like rays of light.
These elemental representations touch viewers with what Conésa describes as pagan grace, allowing audiences to perceive a metamorphosed humanism within seemingly simple botanical subjects. Each expression from the vegetable and animal kingdoms in Brihat's work asserts itself as a transposition of different sensitive modalities, demonstrating the power of enchantment and wonder found in natura naturans - nature in its creative, life-giving essence.
Héloïse Conésa serves as curator of heritage and is responsible for the contemporary photography collection at the BnF. The exhibitions and Brihat's work can be explored further through the BnF website and Denis Brihat's official website, offering visitors deeper insight into the artistic legacy of this towering figure in French photography.
