Barge Family

Like so many of Cartier-Bresson's pictures, this one captures a telling moment in the life of his subjects, in this case that of a barge family, probably in rural France. The vertical composition is dominated by the figure of a young man in the foreground, dark-haired and bare-armed, clad in dungarees, no shirt. He faces away from the camera, and is looking towards the entryway of a barge moored alongside a dock or canal embankment where he stands, and where a pair of sturdy bollards glint in the morning sun. Being closest to the camera, the man is slightly out of focus, particularly where his left elbow points straight at the camera lens.

The center of attention, the point of sharpest focus of the whole composition, is the figure of a baby, plump and naked in the clasping hands of its pretty mother, who stands with one bare foot on the threshold of the barge entry. Also framed in the door are an older woman, likely the child's grandmother, wearing a checked dress and a cap or kerchief, and between the two women, a dog. A second dog has already hopped ashore and is looking up expectantly at the young man, his master.

What can be seen of the barge's superstructure appears to be the living quarters and the raised wheelhouse, whose windows are partly obscured by the man's head. The pane of one window has a crack in it, and the simple roof over the door is of tarpaper held in place by wood battens. In the upper left of the picture can be seen the far bank of the canal, parts of buildings, trees, and walls, and the sparkle of water through the cracked window pane.

What is the story behind this picture? This is what I make of it.

The barge has just arrived and the young man comes ashore to moor it. His mother, the woman in the checked dress, has been busy in the small kitchen, preparing a breakfast of omelets, home-made bread, and coffee. Her daughter-in-law, after giving the baby its bath, smilingly carries it out to see its father. Grandma joins them at the doorway, and so do the two dogs. The young man, hands on hips, whistles to his child, as one dog jumps onto the sunlit landing.