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

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

  • Enabled Art

    Votes: 45 32.1%

  • Destroyed Art

    Votes: 8 5.7%

  • Yawn

    Votes: 87 62.1%
  • Total voters
    140
@Juan Valdenebro - "Photography has not been too influential, and has not changed seriously anything around the concept of art."

Couldn't disagree more...

"(Prior to Photography)... the Impressionists, other painters, notably such 17th-century Dutch painters as Jan Steen, had focused on common subjects, but their approaches to composition were traditional. They arranged their compositions in such a way that the main subject commanded the viewer's attention. The Impressionists relaxed the boundary between subject and background so that the effect of an Impressionist painting often resembles a snapshot, a part of a larger reality captured as if by chance.[13] Photography was gaining popularity, and as cameras became more portable, photographs became more candid. Photography inspired Impressionists to capture the moment, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape, but in the day-to-day lives of people. ...The rise of the impressionist movement can be seen in part as a reaction by artists to the newly established medium of photography. The taking of fixed or still images challenged painters by providing a new medium with which to capture reality. Initially photography's presence seemed to undermine the artist's depiction of nature and their ability to mirror reality. Both portrait and landscape paintings were deemed somewhat deficient and lacking in truth as photography "produced lifelike images much more efficiently and reliably". [14]
Alfred Sisley, View of the Saint-Martin Canal, Paris, 1870, Musée d'Orsay

In spite of this, photography actually inspired artists to pursue other means of artistic expression, and rather than competing with photography to emulate reality, artists focused "on the one thing they could inevitably do better than the photograph – by further developing into an art form its very subjectivity in the conception of the image, the very subjectivity that photography eliminated".[14] The Impressionists sought to express their perceptions of nature, rather than create exacting reflections or mirror images of the world. This allowed artists to subjectively depict what they saw with their "tacit imperatives of taste and conscience". [15]Photography encouraged painters to exploit aspects of the painting medium, like colour, which photography then lacked; "the Impressionists were the first to consciously offer a subjective alternative to the photograph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism

Photography had a direct impact on art. The decisive moment - candid photography, directly influenced how subjects were captured, like candid photos in photography. And also Impressionists and Impressionism, like Cubism, was a direct response to the introduction of this technology.

This response put art in line with what a number of philosophers like Kant argued about fine arts prior to the advent of photography:

Because the purpose of fine art is pleasure rather than utility, art should not represent nature "as it ordinarily is." Genius should modify nature into a "beautiful whole, more perfect than nature itself."
http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil of art/hume_and_kant.htm

As illustrated in the provided quotes, it was photography that forced artists to "not represent nature as it ordinarily is..." but to modify it and make it "more perfect" than nature. This is directly evident in Impressionism and Cubism.

Photography forced artists to create what by Kant's and others of this philosophical school would consider fine art. Thus, photography enabled art or artists to produce art, by Kant's definition. Prior to this, art was merely the utilitarian representation of nature... i.e. not art. By their own admission, Picasso and Impressionists adhered to Kant's school as a reaction to photography.
 
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No, Nick, you're wrong, it was not photography what made artists represent reality in visually different ways... El Greco and Botero, just to name two, both represent volumes in a different way than that proposed after human vision, and the reasons they had to do it their way had nothing to do with photography, which was born after one of them and before the other one.

But what's important to you and your photography is what you think... Don't care about what I think...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
No, Nick, you're wrong, it was not photography what made artists represent reality in visually different ways... El Greco and Botero, just to name two, both represent volumes in a different way than that proposed after human vision, and the reasons they had to do it their way had nothing to do with photography, which was born after one of them and before the other one.

But what's important for you and your photography is what you think... Don't care about what I think...

Cheers,

Juan
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Juan - I cited several sources that gave clear evidence that illustrate to entire movements in fine arts - both Cubism and Impressionism, were both influenced and a result of the introduction of photography... not just citing two artists. It's not a "you think", "I think" thing... ;)

Nick
 
How was El Greco able to do his work without the existence of photography leading to the liberation you pretend only photography gave to artists?
 
Juan, you cite a good example. However, I would argue that El Greco was a highly stylized artist and a precursor to Impressionism. However, from what little I know of his work, his paintings can be characterized as highly stylized traditional paintings but were still representations of reality as opposed to a good deal of Impressionism and virtually all Cubism. There's no confusing El Greco with Picasso.
 
Nick, you don't need to argue... Keep your opinion. If you think art is wider after photography, and it was narrower before it, there's no problem at all for any artist...

Cheers,

Juan
 
as much as i love impressionists and cubists, i think the loss of the aura is more important than either of those movements
 
NickTrop said:
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.
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Nick, I'm not sure, if but we have semantic problems here. For me, the English word "art" can also, in some cases, mean "craft." For me personally, I understand "art" to be mostly "craft." Maybe my level of German is too low. But, I don't think "Kunst" in German is as often related to or is synonymous with "craft" as it is in German.

Also, I recently spent of a lot of time looking at religious paintings in Florence. These paintings, though, old were clearly communicating something beyond reality, and would also fall into the category of "pure art" anyway, or? So that would at least logically disprove point 1.

Cheers,

JP
 
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Blame Goethe and the Romantic Movement. The (wrist to brow) Artist with a capital A was a product of the Romantic Movememt.

Photography merely slotted (very neatly) into the development of both art and Art since then.

Cheers,

R.
 
Well said, Roger! That's why real artists say art is just craft...

Let's remember the old "L'ouvre" museum in Florence is called Uffizi (crafts)...

Cheers,

Juan
 
funkpilz said:
There is no option in this poll for "neither".
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Yeah, I noticed that, too.

Meanwhile. the idea that the world of art suddenly revolved around this startling invention called photography confuses me a bit. Did its existence have an impact in the world of the canvas? Yes. The reverse is just as obvious: how many photographers of note, say, a century previous, were anxiously aping the trends and motifs of the established art world? I would say the world of the moving image had a far larger impact than the still image (for better or worse, depending on one's sensibilities), but the degree of cross-pollination at the time is more fascinating to me than the notion of a mostly one-way influence.

(Edit: Speaking of "influences", there was this thing called the Industrial Revolution...)

It's a bit like talking about the Beatles' influence on 60s rock, without taking a close look at the music that influenced them.

"Art" didn't begin with photography, and it didn't end with it. Art, if I have to try and define it, is more a state of process, inspired thought, intimation, and an X factor or two. It doesn't stop at something some guy just shelled out $1M-plus for (Pablo's still got it, man!).

Picasso did say something pithy about photography. Contrary to the sentiment of that comment, however, he died at a relatively old age, with his boots on, and his brushes close by. Crafty guy, that Picasso.


- Barrett
 
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Some art essays and authors talk about a time of confusion around photography's birth, and contradictory ideas from many people including Walter Benjamin and Charles Baudelaire (who I admire, by the way), and some painters showed a tendency to feel attacked by photography's ability to easily reproduce reality, so there was (and sometimes, is) a common feeling about photography as an inferior thing. But photography didn't change art and didn't change history of art and didn't produce any particular direction on painting or art, at all.

Cheers,

Juan
 
NickTrop said:
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.
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What you state here is basically just an expression theory of art (1) and a represantation/imitation theory of art (2). I think the more interesting question here would be how has the emergence of photography influenced aesthetic theories.

Also, I honestly don't know what your question here even means. What does ''the end of art'' mean? The end of art works? The end of progress in the history of art?
In his essay "The end of art" Arthur C. Danto (in a nutshell) argues that the narrative of art history has come to an end at the very point when art turned into philosophy (i.e. somewhere in the second half of the 20th century). I'll have to read up on it in order to discuss it further, though.
 
Now I have that tune running through my head...

"It's the end of the art world as we know it, it's the end of the Art world as we know it, It's the end of the art world as we know it, And I feel Fine"...
 
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aizan said:
art was neither created nor destroyed by photography, merely influenced.
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+1

God forbid anyone broach the discussion as to the the benefits / detriments of this influence.
 
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