About Artist
Ernst Haas (1921–1986) is acclaimed as one of the most celebrated and influential photographers of the 20th century and considered one of the pioneers of color photography. Haas was born in Vienna in 1921, and took up photography after the war. His early work on Austrian returning prisoners of war brought him to the attention of LIFE magazine. He declined a job offer as staff photographer in order to keep his independence. At the invitation of Robert Capa, Haas joined Magnum in 1949.
Throughout his career, Haas traveled extensively, photographing for LIFE, Vogue, and Look, to name a few of many influential publications. He authored four books during his lifetime: The Creation (1971), In America (1975), In Germany (1976), and Himalayan Pilgrimage (1978).
Writing by Ernst Haas
Photography is a bridge between science and art. It brings to science what it needs most, the artistic sense, and to art the proof that nothing can be imagined which cannot be matched in the counterpoints of nature. Through photography, both artist and scientist can find a common denominator in their search for the synthesis of modern vision in time, space, and structure. We can write the new chapters in a visual language whose prose and poetry will need no translation.
The camera only facilitates the taking. The photographer must do the giving in order to transform and transcend ordinary reality. The problem is to transform without deforming. He must gain intensity in form and content by bringing a subjective order into objective chaos. Living in a time of the increasing struggle of the mechanization of man, photography has become another example of this paradoxical problem of how to humanize, how to overcome a machine on which we are thoroughly dependent . . . the camera.
The Creation
At my age, the scale of what I have done and what I still have to do is in constant movement and competition. For me, photography became a language with which I have learned to write both prose and poetry.
Whatever I did and do always became the extension of my interests. The inter- relationship of all senses and arts is very important to me. I wanted to connect photography with words through books and articles, with music through audio- visuals. In exhibitions, single pictures have to speak their pure language. I want to be open to everything in this world , and I am even willing to unlearn.
Important is the end result of your work: the opus. Therefore, I want to be remembered much more by a total vision than a few perfect single pictures.
Reflective Note
Under the lens of Ernst Haas, the connection between matter and mental as narrative chapters generally tells their own stories but still maintain mystery that never know what happened in there except have artist statement support. This mystery brings the structure behind artistic images that offering an obscure experience for audiences doing a different interpretation of each photo based on the books they have read, life experience and cognition, as a sparkle of bloom.
[1] Ernst Haas 2020, Ernst Haas, Ernst-Haas, viewed 10 May 2020, <http://ernst-haas.com>
The Images Collection 