Impact of Photography on Art World
Photography is a craft or technique of delivering pictures of objects on photosynthesis surfaces through a chemical activity of light as well as various types of radiant energy. The origin of photography can be traced back to the 1830s to 1840s (Prodger, 2012). Essentially, the creation of photography would change society and correspondence throughout the world. Surprisingly, pictures of real-life would be captured for descendants and sent across the world. Additionally, photography has radically transformed painting. It is also important to note that the rise of impressionism is viewed as a part of a response by artists to this newly developed medium of photography (Kiama art Gallery, 2015). Ancient photographers such as Robert Frank and Garry Winograd focused on everyday life. In other words, photography influenced the interest of impressionists to capture snapshots of ordinary citizens performing their daily activities. Therefore, photography led to the reproduction of art objects as well as changing the visual culture in the society.
To start with, photography played a major role in democratizing art by making it cheaper, portable, and accessible. Particularly, photographed portraits were cheaper and easier to make than painted portraits. Consequently, the portraits ceased to be only for the wealthy in society, and sense became democratized (Hertzmann, 2018). However, the upper-class section highly opposed photography since they felt that it was cheapening art. The opposition by the upper-class led to “kitsch”, which referred to the attempt to replicate enormously and cheaply something unique and artistic. Some also termed photography as the refuge of unsuccessful painters with little talent. It was believed that art was obtained from judgment, imagination, and feeling while photography was just a reproduction that led to cheapened products.
The greatest contribution that the new technique of photography made to painting was to release art from the shackles of realism to factuality. Since its establishment, painting depended on fixed subjects and it was a process that took a substantial amount of time to attain the desired realistic outcome. Nevertheless, photography provided a new way of seeing the world in images since it could capture momentary effects of light, fleeting, and movement something impossible under the conventional studio conditions. With photography, there was no need for an artist’s brush or pencil to labor intensively to portray and record people, objects, or occasions which photographer could record using his lens with practical speed and ease. The painting was a success in the nineteenth century within a largely conventional set of conventions until half of the 20th century (Kiama art Gallery, 2015). The artists started to experience challenges of abstraction, color, and pure form, leaving the photographer to make visual records. Painters started to search for aspects that painting could do that photographers could not do.
Photography came in handy to artists since cameras could disclose some details that could be fleeting to be viewed by naked eyes. It is worth noting that cameras do not lie since they take the exact image of an object. The idea of the nineteen -century was that photography was ambiguous when it comes to impressionists (Hertzmann, 2018). Initially, the artwork was diametrically against photographic realism right from the Academy. At the foundation of photography, the primary focus was to evaluate the impact of light on the intended object.
In summary, the invention of photography has led to new genres of painting including impression, cubism, and expression among others. Therefore, the innovations in photography led to the establishment of new artistic movements while it also challenged conventional ideas about painting as the only form of art.
References
Hertzmann, A. (2018, July 23). How photography became an art form. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@aaronhertzmann/how-photography-became-an-art-form-7b74da777c63
Kiama art Gallery. (2015, May 5). Impressionism – The influence of Photography. Retrieved from https://kiamaartgallery.wordpress.com/tag/influence-of-photography-on-modern-art/
Prodger, M. (2012, October 19). Photography: is it art? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/oct/19/photography-is-it-art