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Painting Meets the Photographic Reality
When Photography Was Not Yet
Considered an Art Form
Realistic paintings competed with photographic realism by creating colourful versions of black-and-white photographs.
When photographic images distort public taste…
The history of 19th-century artistic movements, including Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Symbolism, would be incomplete without an in-depth study of the relationship between artists and photography.
This new form of mechanical imagery triggered an identity crisis in painting, forcing it to evolve.
Chapter 1 - When Photography Changed the Public’s Taste
Japonisme alone does not explain all the upheavals.
Distorted foregrounds, accelerated perspectives and cropped frames are all characteristics that painters borrowed from photography. Furthermore, the invention of the instant photograph by Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey caused a stir in the artistic world by breaking down animal movement, starting with Degas, Seurat and Rodin.
Chapter 2 - Photographic Truth vs. Optical Truth
The hidden photographs of the masters.
The critics and entourage of Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet and Gustave Moreau ignored for a long time how much their work owed to the photographic image.
Chapter 3 - Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet and Gustave Moreau
None resisted, not even the so-called outdoor painters.
Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet, who painted fleeting impressions captured on the motif, also incorporated photography into their working technique.
Chapter 4 - The Impressionists and Photography
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