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Early Photography and Painting
From Contempt to Recognition
Less than a decade after the photographic process was disclosed, portrait and landscape painters found themselves competing with images of unrivalled realism.
This competing imagery inevitably transformed the art of Édouard Manet, the sacrosanct Jean-Dominique Ingres and even the Pre-Raphaelites.
The revolution came through light.
Three techniques for mechanised image reproduction — the daguerreotype, the calotype and glass plate photography — appeared during the 1840s and 1850s.
Chapter 1 - The Birth of Photography
What will become of portrait painting?
Now that it is being seriously undermined by a more truthful competitor. This technique, known as photography, immediately began to compete with portrait painters and engravers, forcing the less talented among them out of work. Only the most gifted would survive, renowned portraitists such as Gérôme, Ingres and Manet, albeit at the cost of adopting photographic aesthetics.
Chapter 2 - The Impact of Photography on Portraiture
Orientalist and History paintings are also affected.
Documentary photography prompted a change in perspective. It suddenly provided artists such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and Lawrence Alma-Tadema with material for their work, lending it greater authenticity. War photography, particularly the work of Roger Fenton, compelled painters to abandon antique models in favour of a more realistic and detailed approach. Unexpected results sometimes occurred, as with Édouard Manet's The Execution of Maximilian. The painter unknowingly incorporated elements from misleading photomontages into his work.
Chapter 3 - Painting in Time of Photographic Reporting
The tastes of the French and the English differ.
In France, photographers and landscape painters shared a taste for nuanced contours and atmospheric luminosity. In contrast, their English counterparts, including William Holman Hunt, favoured detail and sharpness. The spirit of photomontage and the imperfections of photography found their way into the work of the greatest painters, including John Everett Millais.
Chapter 4 - Landscape Painting, Photomontage
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