So, AFAICT (as far as I can tell) all the musing going on here is just because it is an HCB photograph.
Of course it is. And that's what's interesting about it, why we shouldn't dismiss the inquiry simply as musings.
This photograph departs from everything we know about Cartier-Bresson. It's a landscape without people, which he never did. There is no geometric principle at work in the composition, which we know was fundamental for him. In fact, you could find many aesthetic elements in this photo that could make you doubt that it's even a Cartier-Bresson, as there are few photographers with a signature as distinctive as his. Yet not only is he the one who took it, not only did he take it despite it seemingly not conforming to his aesthetic persona, but he included it in a book meant as a restrospective of his favoured works.
Therefore, the picture had meaning to him. And this is what makes the conversation interesting. It forces us move away from generalities regarding geometry and composition and form and beauty and personal preferences (I like it / I don't like it) to ask the question Why did he take this. And this in turn takes us to the very question of meaning in photography.
Because in our appreciation of photographs, if not in our own photography, we put so much emphasis on composition and its elements, we tend to forget, omit or refuse to admit that photography can also be about meaning, that a photograph can be looked at from the point of view of its meaning—or possible meaning—rather than through compositional elements such as geometry, balance, color, tonality, etc.
I don't know if my hypothesis that this is a photograph related to the place where Cartier-Bresson hid after escaping from a German prison camp. But say it is. And say it's the reason he included it in his choice of his most favoured photographs. This forces you to look at it differently—to
look at it as meaningful rather than trying to
see the compositional elements that would make it a "good" photograph. You look at it with his eyes, and, through empathy, understand what is moving about the place and why he took it.
Sometimes meaning is irrelevant and it's about composition, and sometimes composition is irrelevant and it's about meaning. Photography allows both, and all nuances in between.
I do think it's great to be reminded that looking at a photography, as, I believe, Stephen Shore wrote (or maybe it was John Swarkovski?) is also asking the question Why did someone think this was interesting enough to take a photo of it.
I like this photo because it reminds me of Robert Adams' eloquent words (when is he not eloquent?): "Landscape pictures can offer us, I think, three verities—geography, autobiography, and metaphor."