There is a sense of jubilation in the photographs of Robert Doisneau, something that takes us back to the innocence of childhood, to what stays in memory like years of carefree living. The Musée Maillol is presenting a major exhibition under the name “Instants” (“Instants donnés” in French, but they don’t seem to be given in English) of many of his well-known photographs but also some of his lesser-known works, many of them centered on childhood. So let us be carried back to the wooden benches of primary school, with our smocks and inkwells, to that childhood lost long ago yet still so close in spirit. The audience, mostly sixty-somethings, young retirees, easily find themselves reflected in these images, for this was their childhood, just as it was mine. So let us not spoil our happiness: let us be carried away, “en sortant de l’école” with Prévert or with Brassens’ “la maîtresse d’école”, the one with “advanced methods”. One picture stayed with me: Un Guetteur, or A Lookout, a sobering reminder of the passage of time and of how much the world has changed, when thinking of the lookouts in today’s banlieues.
