Did the Photographic Era Cause the Beginning or the End of Art??

[NickTrop]

I have an artist friend/co-worker whose work is exhibited and who is a very talented graduate of a Philly-based art school. He's also into photography. Over lunch he educated me about two schools of thought regarding the impact of photography on traditional art, while discussing the Picasso/Cubism exhibit I saw in Philly recently. What school of thought are you?

1. Photography enabled art. Because most (if not all) art (traditional painting, sculpting) was done by commission prior to the invention of photography, art as a means of self expression didn't exist. Artists were essentially extremely skilled illustrators who worked for a paycheck filling the void of creating portraits and landscapes because photography didn't exist. When photography came along, it made this function - and the artists/illustrators obsolete. Photos were faster, cheaper, and more accurate means of essentially documenting. Artists, such as Picasso, reinvented art as a means of self-expression and using the medium to re-envision the world and as a means of communication. Art, therefore, didn't exist prior to the advent of photography because it was not a means of communication/expression and artists were highly-skilled illustrators, in essence.

2. Photography destroyed art. Photography made art obsolete. True artists were masters of their craft whose work was emotional and evocative despite - or perhaps because of, their work being representations of reality. The fact they were paid has no bearing. Because photography negated their craft, the artist reinvented art, in the form of Cubism (as one example) and drifted far away from realistic representation. With this drifting, their work became inaccessible and lost emotional impact. Those who view modern art can not access it, spend more time wondering what the artist means or is up to, and modern paintings and sculpture have little to no emotional impact and hardly qualify as "art". Photography made the artist obsolete, and forced artists to drift into an inaccessible and unevokative realm that is therefore not art. Photography destroyed art.

 

[Finder]

There was no true art until photography.

 

[aizan]

art was neither created nor destroyed by photography, merely influenced.

 

[jsrockit]

Neither, nor IMHO.

 

[gns]

art was neither created nor destroyed by photography, merely influenced.

This seems the obvious answer to me too, Aizan.



"Art, therefore, didn't exist prior to the advent of photography..."

"Photography made art obsolete"

Both statements easy to dismiss simply by looking around.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[pagpow]

Nick -- are you sure about the statement of the first as argument -- not whether it reflects reality, but whether it states the position accurately?

Lot of people we call artists existed before photography, and surely communicated through their art, even if the pieces were commissioned.

There seems to be a confounding of expression and self-expression, communication and communicating one's own ideas, documentation and interpretation in that framing of the argument.

Further, we still have sculptors and painters who came after photography -- so neither beginning nor end of art.

I'm with the influenced crowd.

 

[gdmcclintock]

Photography destroyed art, obviously, by making the artistic process available to the hoi polloi. Rather than disabuse us of this notion, elite art schools enforce this destruction.

 

[elmer3.5]

Cezanne

Cezanne

Hi,

Photography liberated art from being the instrument of naturalistic representation, the main tool was high regarded craftmanship.

Since photos got that job and got better and quicker results, art then could make knowledge of it´s own, beginning a path to nowadays arts.

If you like it or not that´s another issue 🙂

Bye

 

[gns]

exactly how many times has painting died, anyway?

 

[NickTrop]

I believe I am stating this position correctly. Actually, it came to light during the exhibit and a couple lines resonated on the tape I was listening to which coincided with this Wiki entry:

Cubism and its legacy continue(s)...significant numbers of contemporary artists continue to draw upon it both stylistically and perhaps more importantly, theoretically. The latter contains the clue as to the reason for cubism's enduring fascination for artists. As an essentially representational school of painting, having to come to grips with the rising importance of photography as an increasingly viable method of image making, cubism attempts to take representational imagery beyond the mechanically photographic...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...o+cubism+photography&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

I am not an art historian... However, prior to photography, what was considered art - great art, masterpieces, were by and large "mechanically photographic" in nature however stunning they were technically. As I recall from the exhibit's audio presentation I was listening to - the line of which I don't recall verbatim, Picasso and many of his contemporaries were very conscious and "coming to grips" (see above) with the impact of the photographic medium. Because of photography, we went from "mechanically photographic representation" of reality, paid for by commission to the artist to an "essentially representational school of painting" - Cubism and other forms of modern art. Some would argue - and I agree that a dichotomy exists, that photography went far beyond merely "influencing" art. It fundamentally changed it and this change was a conscious and deliberate decision on the part of artists like Picasso to re-invent art to make it relevant and remove it from competing with photography. This conscious and deliberate reinvention of art due its inability to compete with photography, economically, resulted in art being a form of communication and expression. I can't paint a fruit bowl as realistically as a camera can take a picture of it. But I can re-represent reality using new, invented by me, different "unreal" perception. However, by removing the objects ties to how we actually perceive things also has the impact of making work inaccessible. Hence two schools of thought. But to say photography merely "influenced" art is, I think, a gross understatement.

 

[Steve M.]

Unfortunately, this is the sort of twaddle that art schools produce. Not a reflection on the poster, but your "artist" friend is full of it. And being a graduate of a prestigious art school and showing in galleries means....less than nothing. You can either produce really good art (not a lot of this around these days), or you can talk art twaddle.

I have a lot of friends back in Hilo and Albuquerque that produce very good work (myself included, but that's neither here nor there). The work is in museums, galleries, public collections, and public parks (sculpture). None of that means diddly. It's about making art, and you can do it, or you can talk endlessly about it. A photograph is just a way to make an image. Printing, painting, lithography, sculpture, ceramics, and on and on are all about making an image. Let's not confuse disciplines. Any way you can make an image is fine, and no one way is going to "destroy" art, or do much else. Especially at today's pitiful level of accomplishment. There's a ton of junk out there now, and to a certain extent there always has been. The good are few and far between and trust me, they don't sit around and talk about art being destroyed or complimented by a single discipline. They talk endlessly about THEIR art. Aggravating to be around, for sure, but that's the game.

 

[SPF]

neither the beginning nor the end.

neither the beginning nor the end.

The camera obscura was likely known to artists/craftsmen as early as the 15th century. It's almost certain that Leonardo Da Vinci used one, Durer certainly did.

I think the set up that painting, particularly cubism, is the baseline for art is too simplistic. Painting is one of many disciplines of art or craft, so are photography, sculpture and screen writing. What constitutes art is still a matter of great debate, but let's just say for the sake of argument, that it is the exploration and contrasting of ideas.

Would we have cubism without photography? Perhaps not, but to suggest that one technology has killed another, particularly when it comes to creative uses, is shortsighted.

Has instant messaging killed telephone conversations? Has filmmaking caused the end of the novel? Has digital killed film, or tintype? Not at all. In fact, one has only to look at the work of Chuck Close, a photo-realistic painter who rose to prominence working so closely with the process of photography that he painted in layers much like a C-print. Today he makes daguerreotypes.

He explained why to the British paper, the Guardian: I'm not interested in daguerreotypes because it's an antiquarian process; I like them because, from my point of view, photography never got any better than it was in 1840.

 

[NickTrop]

Unfortunately, this is the sort of twaddle that art schools produce.

I don't think it's "twaddle" at all. What my artist pal (by the way - he went to school in the early 70's... Former hippie cat.) It jibes with the comments made during the exhibit on the tape, it jibes with the first "google" entry (point being I didn't have to look very far...)

1. Photography is introduced, artist like Picasso, fundamentally change the nature of art so it doesn't have to compete with it.

2. This fundamental change resulted in the very common perception that "art" began with Cubism - all that was prior was not art in the same way that magazine illustration and comic books are not art.

3. Others find this Cubism or "modern art" an insult and a joke. It's not accessible, has little to no emotional appeal and looks like children's finger painting. This view is so common as to be the fodder of comedians going back to The Three Stooges and prior. However, it's also quite valid perspective.

Go to get your MFA in fine arts. Paint a fruit bowl as "mechanically photographic" in the style of the Dutch Masters for your final project. Betchya it won't cut it, no matter how technically skilled and lifelike it is. Why? Paint some "monstrosity" with the same correlation as a 2 year old's representation of reality, but justify it aesthetically, and earn praise and your MFA.

Some would argue that Coltrane's Assention is not music and that he didn't create music in the later part of his career. Others would argue that he took jazz to the next level and his prior work was largely an exhibition of technical proficiency. Same applies here, except the catalyst for this change in fine arts was the introduction of a new technology - photography. Again, read the Wiki quote. Artists were very aware of photography and its impact on their livelihood.

 

[NickTrop]

Here is some philosophical basis for the argument:

Long before the invention of photography, philosophers began to question the narrative role of the art of painting, in which naturalism served to create an illusion of reality. Paintings would tell stories and depict actions and emotions; the content of a painting was its central feature, not the painting itself, with its form and color. This would be reversed by the influence of theoreticians like Denis Diderot, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schoppenhauer. They felt that the art of painting should not copy nature, but should be an independent art form; the purpose of a painting became the painting itself.
http://pablo-picasso.paintings.name/

This, it seems, if you agree with philosophers like Kant, that fine art that "copies nature" is not art. For art to be art, it must be independent and the painting itself the object of art. Hence, the philosophical basis for the argument that "art" didn't exist prior to Cubism because for art to be art it can't be merely a representation of nature. Afrer photography artists were forced to not merely represent reality and therefore started producing pure art.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

I have an artist friend/co-worker whose work is exhibited and who is a very talented graduate of a Philly-based art school. He's also into photography. Over lunch he educated me about two schools of thought regarding the impact of photography on traditional art, while discussing the Picasso/Cubism exhibit I saw in Philly recently. What school of thought are you?

1. Photography enabled art. Because most (if not all) art (traditional painting, sculpting) was done by commission prior to the invention of photography, art as a means of self expression didn't exist. Artists were essentially extremely skilled illustrators who worked for a paycheck filling the void of creating portraits and landscapes because photography didn't exist. When photography came along, it made this function - and the artists/illustrators obsolete. Photos were faster, cheaper, and more accurate means of essentially documenting. Artists, such as Picasso, reinvented art as a means of self-expression and using the medium to re-envision the world and as a means of communication. Art, therefore, didn't exist prior to the advent of photography because it was not a means of communication/expression and artists were highly-skilled illustrators, in essence.

2. Photography destroyed art. Photography made art obsolete. True artists were masters of their craft whose work was emotional and evocative despite - or perhaps because of, their work being representations of reality. The fact they were paid has no bearing. Because photography negated their craft, the artist reinvented art, in the form of Cubism (as one example) and drifted far away from realistic representation. With this drifting, their work became inaccessible and lost emotional impact. Those who view modern art can not access it, spend more time wondering what the artist means or is up to, and modern paintings and sculpture have little to no emotional impact and hardly qualify as "art". Photography made the artist obsolete, and forced artists to drift into an inaccessible and unevokative realm that is therefore not art. Photography destroyed art.

Photography has not been too influential, and has not changed seriously anything around the concept of art.

About your points:

1. No... Great artists always found the way to create and express deeply and for ages even if their job was made by commission... They expressed and created far beyond literal representation. And that's what photography considered art does precisely, so things remain the same.

2. No... No matter if you are figurative when painting or pictorial when shooting, or if on the contrary you are on purpose placing your visual remaking of reality far from a literal vision, you have the possibility of playing with different/opposite/contradictory concepts related to your work and its description of life, and in every case the artist can decide to produce a strong or delicate emotional impact.

Photography has not been that important.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Oh Two]

The most common failure of logic

The most common failure of logic

Is a false major premise.

 

[aizan]

we're just talking about the modern art world, which relabeled all of the other artists and created a new market for itself. photography wasn't the first or the most important factor in modern art's development, either. politics and art itself did the lion's share of the work.

 

[SPF]

well where does that leave us with Lascaux or mannerism?

well where does that leave us with Lascaux or mannerism?

or Egyptian hieroglyphics? All of those modes of expression are stylized versions of the natural world and pre-date modern photography. What's more, cubism owes as much to so called primitive art, particularly the angular and stylized masks and totems of Africa, as it does to photography.

Perhaps you don't like cubism or modern art, that's fine, but your initial question was whether photography had caused the beginning or ending of art.

Would you ask the same of European and American artists' fascination with primitive art in the 1920's?

It's important to remember that photography (literally "light drawing/writing") is, at its essence, a very old technology, one that dates to roughly the same time period that artisans began to think of themselves as artists.

 

[porktaco]

http://design.wishiewashie.com/HT5/WalterBenjaminTheWorkofArt.pdf

this thread is now about walter benjamin

The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual
work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. This holds not only for the art work but
also, for instance, for a landscape which passes in review before the spectator in a movie. In the case of the
art object, a most sensitive nucleus—namely, its authenticity—is interfered with whereas no natural object
is vulnerable on that score. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its
beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced.
Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction
when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardized when the historical testimony
is affected is the authority of the object.

One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in
the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a symptomatic process whose
significance points beyond the realm of art. One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction
detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes
a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or
listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead
to a tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of
mankind. Both processes are intimately connected with the contemporary mass movements. Their most
powerful agent is the film. Its social significance, particularly in its most positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic aspect, that is, the liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural
heritage. This phenomenon is most palpable in the great historical films. It extends to ever new positions.

In 1927 Abel Gance exclaimed enthusiastically:

Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Beethoven will make films. . . all legends, all mythologies and all
myths, all founders of religion, and the very religions. . . await their exposed resurrection, and
the heroes crowd each other at the gate.

Presumably without intending it, he issued an invitation to a far-reaching liquidation.

btw, i voted ENABLED

 

[victoriapio]

I tend to agree with what appears to be the majority here:
1) there were great artists long before photography, commissions or not.
2. Photography has influenced art, certainly, but to what extent is uncertain.
3. I was watching Ovation a few weeks ago and there was an interview with HC Bresson. The interviewer asked why he had concentrated on drawings in his later years. He replied that he like to draw, but he also said he never stopped taking pictures. When asked why, he said because photography is drawing, but much easier than pencil drawing ( I paraphrase of course). Having seen HCB drawings, I tend to classify him as an artist with a camera but not with a pencil. So if his photography influenced his drawings, it didn't take. Perhaps however, his drawings influenced the way he "saw" and framed his images.
4. What does this have to do with the original post? Beats me, I'm no artist :bang: