Say Cheese French Focus on China

by+Yi+Mei

French inventors first made pho- tography a reality， and in 1844， Jules Alphonse Eugène Itier（1802-1877）， a French customs inspector， took the first picture of China to ever exist. Since then， myriad Frenchmen have turned lenses to China. On February 12， 2014， an exhibition entitled The French Focus on China， 1844-2014 opened at Beijings Today Art Museum. The displays tell stories from the perspective of French soldiers， diplomats， missionaries， and lone travelers who have been attempting to illustrate their fascination with the East for over a century and a half.

Auguste Francois （1857-1935） arrived in China in 1896. During his stay at a consulate in China for eight years， Francois snapped thousands of pictures of the country， which made him the most prolific French photographer to focus on China during the Qing Dynasty （1644-1911）. Those pictures are the earliest and best preserved documentary photos of Asia during that era. Insiders believe that Francois shone a spotlight on “an Empire soon coming to its end.”

The first Western country to establish formal diplomatic relations with China， France was one of Chinas few Western allies during revolutionary eras. French photographers were some of the few outsiders to enter “red China” and witness the mysterious nation. Henri Cartier-Bresson， father of global documentary photography of the 20th Century， was one of them. From 1948 to 1949， Bresson traveled through China for a year， first witnessing the Kuomintang Partys retreat and then observing the founding of New China in 1949. This monumental historical transition in China was objectively recorded by Bressons photos， which are compiled in his book From One China to the Other.

Since the reform and opening up， China has gone through great changes， which have made Chinese people both excited and perplexed. As a neutral third party， French photographers continued keeping an eye on modern China.

The photos on display show diverse perspectives， involve various people and tell different stories. Some capture monumental events while others exhibit daily life of ordinary people. The exhibition juxtaposes subjective reporting in black and white with images of contemporary architecture， mixing large format color and small blackand-white prints， scholarly research and spontaneity. Although each photographers methods differ， their obsession with China remains constant. Just as French ambassador to China Sylvie Bermann said at the opening ceremony of the exhibition，“Through photography， French people show not only China in their eyes， but also their fascination with China over more than a century and a half.”