"Whatever we have done, Kertész did first." - Henri Cartier-Bresson
On Reading - André Kertész
The recent release of the iPad touched off another round of speculation about the future of the printed book. Will ink and paper give way to glowing pixels? Will groaning bookshelves give way to electronic devices capable of reducing an entire library to a plastic box small enough to fit in purse or briefcase?
Will people even read at all.
André Kertész's photo essay,
On Reading, is not about books, but about people reading. The earliest photograph shows three small boys sharing a book in Esztergom, Hungary in 1915. The most recent photograph in the book is of a man reading on a New York rooftop in 1970. This slim volume spans over 50 years of Kertesz's career, and each of the 66 photographs is intensely seen, dense with life.
Consider: La Havre, France, 1948. In front of a battered brick building , a lampost stands at a crazy angle in front on a curtained window. The wooden shutters are open. A woman inside, holding a book close to her face, reads in the window light.
Consider: A man and woman at the Medici Fountain, Paris in 1928. The woman hold a briefcase and portfolio on her lap. At first glance, it could be a businessman and his secretary on lunch break. But notice that the woman is touchng him.. Their heads are bent together over a book, and they seem lost in their own world.
Consider: Belleview Forest, Paris, 1931. A woman sits on the ground alone, surrounded by leaf-less trees. Her legs are stretched straight out in front of her and she is reading a newspaper. Beside her on the ground is a folded overcoat, and on top of that, a man's hat.
Consider: On a small roof-top terrace in Paris, 1963, a man sits alone reading a newspaper. A trellis made of wire forms a canopy over his head, and in flower boxes perched on the very edge of the terrace a vining plant is starting to grow, morning glories perhaps, or beans. It is early spring. The flue thimbles on the surrounding roofs look like flower pots.
This is a small book, one to return to again and again, to linger over. It is a book to be read, although it contains just pictures, no words.
Someday,
On Reading will no doubt be available for download to your portable electronic device. And that's fine. But as a lifelong lover of ink and paper, I'll take the printed book, find a quiet corner with good light, and read.
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A selection of the photographs in
On Reading is available at
this web gallery.
On Reading was first published in 1971 and was re-issued by W.W. Norton in 2008. It is still in print and available in bookstores and online. Photography In Place is not affiliated with any book seller and does not profit from sales of this book.
This church was built in 1912 on a hill surrounded by rolling farmland with the Blue Ridge Mountains close on the horizon. The frame building, which cost $1200 to construct, was completed and dedicated in 1913. 
