A Salute to the Masters: Paestum (A Tribute to Serge Moulinier)

This article is dedicated to Serge Moulinier, a largely unknown French photographer who won one of the most important prizes in France with a book on Greek architecture. Strangely, little information can be found on the Internet about this great photographer whose work had also been published in an important essay written by the famous John Szarkowski, former Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

After writing articles dedicated to many famous photographers, this one is a tribute to a largely unknown master of architectural photography, a winner of the Nadar Prize in 1959 with his book, “L’Ordre Grec – Essai sur le Temple Dorique,” published in 1958 by Arthaud.

I discovered remarkable photos by Serge Moulinier in the book, “The Photographer’s Eye,” written by former Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Director of Photography, John Szarkowski. This book is divided into five parts, each one dedicated to a specific characteristic of the photographic image. These parts are “The Thing Itself,” “The Detail,” “The Frame,” “Time,” and “Vantage Point.” It is a source of inspiration for every beginner—inside are few words and many photos from many important masters of photography like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, André Kertész, and Walker Evans, as well as photos by unknown photographers.

It was in the third part that I discovered two photographs by Moulinier in which he masterfully depicted two Greek temples located in the archaeological sites of Paestum and Agrigento in Italy. I became fascinated by his way of representing harmony in Greek architecture; therefore, I felt compelled to write this tribute.

While the book contains photos Moulinier took in the most important Greek archaeological sites like Athens, Olympia, Segesta, Agrigento, and Paestum (the last three are located in Italy), for this tribute I decided to include only my photos taken in the last site. You can find my other albums dedicated to Agrigento here (taken with my LC-Wide) and here (taken with my Canonet).

Strangely, I didn’t find any biography about Moulinier, not even in the book. This seemed strange for an artist who won one of the most important photography prizes in France! In this link, you can see some of his photos from his two most important books, “L’Ordre Greek” and “L’Ordre Orgival” (this one was dedicated to the Gothic architecture).

A Salute to the Masters is a series dedicated to great photographers that I like. I posted other tributes for Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Helen Levitt, Ernst Haas, Stephen Shore, Gabriele Basilico, Robert Adams, Thomas Struth, J.H. Lartigue, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank, Gianni Berengo Gardin, André Kertész, Willy Ronis, Brassaï, Rodchenko, Dan Graham, Henry Grant, William Eggleston, Dennis Stock, Juergen Teller, Martin Parr, Peter Mitchell, Mario Giacomelli, David Burnett, Michael Williamson, Bernard Cahier, Harry Gruyaert, Bruno Barbey, Paul Strand, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Lothar Rübelt, David Goldblatt, Henry Cartier-Bresson, Raymond Depardon, Aaron Siskind, Mario de Biasi, Sabine Weiss, Jack Delano, Bill Eppridge, Édouard Boubat and Izis Bidermanas. I especially love street photography and urban architectural photography.

written by sirio174 on 2015-05-23 #lifestyle #greece #italy #archaeology #paestum #regular-contributor #a-salute-to-the-masters #serge-moulinier