Jean-François Lyotard, “Answering The Question: What Is Postmodernism?”, trans. Régis Durand, in The Post Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1984, pp.71-82.
I agree with Lyotards comment that ‘photography did not appear as a challenge to painting from the out side any more than industrial cinema did to narrative literature.’ Photography’s conception did not undermine painting or aim to supersede it; it simply became another way of capturing an original subject or providing evidence of its reality. Just like previous inventions before photography, for example, the printing press it did not destroy the need for writing it merely became another way to reproduce text.
Photography cannot destroy the beauty of painting, as they are completely different ways of picturing objects. The camera takes a direct impression of the world around us where as painting ‘even one that meets a photographic standard of representation is never more than the stating of an interpretation.’ In painting the subject and the style in which it is depeciated is due to the choice of the artist and the skills they posses. Susan Sontag brings up an interesting point in her essay ‘On Photography’ on the contrast between the image (copy) and thing depicted (original), the way an artist decides to picture a subject in their paintings from life may be far different from what a camera can produce. Artists from the Impressionists movement achieved this reality; their aim was to capture the changing effects of light on the landscape through colour and use of painterly brush strokes. The style captures the mood of the landscape through the artists’ impression of the space.
Walter Benjamin discusses in his essay the term “aura” in reference to how one feels when in the presence of a unique work of art. Through the use of ‘tools’ such as photography, painting and photoshop contemporary artists are able to piece together ideas from the world in different way to depict new realities that relate to the time in which we live to create works that are relevant to the time in which we life creating a new relevant ‘aura’. This proves the point that Lyotard was correct in saying that photography did not appear as a challenge to painting.
Sontag, Susan, On Photography, Picador 2001, pg.154
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Rhonda Fowler in 'Portraiture: The Art of Social Commentary' makes a remark that i believe is relevant to your above discussion: "...personal identity is increasingly aligned with the power of technology and the way it allows for the deconstruction and re-vision-ed world (the sharing of stories and reworking of unwritten histories). Using technologies can provide immediacy in this ‘new world’"
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that Lyotard was correct in saying that photography did not appear as a challenge to painting - but would add in response through the enlightnement of Rhonda Fowler, that the media chosen by the artist is influenced by the power structures that surround them - for example the prevalence of new media and object based art is possibly a direct impact over saturated consumer advertised environment.
That is a interesting further link you have made Taart, I can see how the two link together. The above statement would be a great way to further development this discussion
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