The Sense of Sight

The Sense of Sight

Valencia, Spain 1933

Magnum

John Berger's book about the philosophical aspects of vision and the visual aesthetics is almost too close to being an art book to qualify for inclusion in this collection, but I've included it nonetheless; the Cartier-Bresson on the cover is just too perfect for the title. Limiting itself to the basic shapes of circle and rectangle, the composition is as simple and extraordinary as a poem, punctuated by the monocle of the bullring guard; a glinting disk of light so perfectly round it might serve as the period below an exclamation mark. KB