Jacques Lartigue's "Zissou in a Tire Boat," c. 1910

 

I took a history of photography class many years ago in which we covered a lot of ground too quickly. When asked to upload an image for this course, my mind went immediately to this image, which I’d seen so long ago. There are millions of  visually interesting and moving photographs out there—I had to ask myself why this silly portrait popped into my head. This photo struck me because it didn’t take itself seriously and, in fact, it was funny. After everything we’d studied—the stern-looking, posed portraits; the empty, though beautiful, landscapes; the disturbing records of Charcot’s mentally ill patients; Victorian photography such as Julia Margaret Cameron’s, which takes itself way too seriously; and the saccharin pictorialist stuff—Jacques Lartigue's family photos were a breath of fresh air. This picture, called “Zissou in the Tire Boat” dates from circa 1908–10. An image of a guy who resembles Marcel Proust sitting in a inner tube and wearing a proper jacket and tie, and sunglasses and a pith helmet, looking out at the photographer, just seemed so absurd. I also like the way his feet stick out in an inelegant way so that the top and the bottom half of his body do not do not line up—both literally and in terms of tone (top half is more dignified than the bottom half). Lartigue was from a wealthy French family and got his first camera at age 6. He took lots of family photos and pictures of people and machines in motion. Part of what made, and continues to make, this work special for me is that Lartigue was probably around 14 years old when he took it.