Magnum Landscape - Softcover

Landscape, says Henri Peretz, is the photographic genre which above all others "sets in competition the simple viewer, the painter, the amateur and professional photographer." This book, which marks the 50th anniversary of the Magnum Photo Agency, collects images by some of the most imaginative photographers of the century. Many have the eye of great painters: Henri Cartier-Bresson's study of picnickers on the bank of the River Marne is like a Renoir brought to life, while Bruno Barbey's exquisite color image of soldiers descending the hills of Kurdistan has the quality of an Albert Bierstadt canvas. There are some wonderfully surreal visions here too, such as Bruce Davidson's shot of the Statue of Liberty with a New Jersey junkyard in the foreground, and Richard Kalvar's image of a naked man on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Ian Jeffrey is a photography writer, lecturer and curator. He teaches at Goldsmith's College, London. His other books include The Photography Book also published by Phaidon, Portraits of Artists (2000) and Revisions: An Alternative History of Photography (1999).