- As the years in the twentieth century passed us by, photographers conjured an art separate from painting. When technology allowed and cameras became smaller and easy to transport into the field, correspondents for newspapers diverged from the practice of posing figures. Candid images portraying every aspect of daily life graced newspaper and magazines. These candid shots contained a narrative previously unattainable through traditional portraiture. For example, we are fortunate to have several photos of Abraham Lincoln, most of which are of the man posing in front of a backdrop, his eyes looking just towards the side of the photograph. The exposure required to capture an image like this was quite a few seconds, so Lincoln would have been forced into finding a pose and hold it steadily. Today with the exposure time reduced to a 400th of a second or less, we can capture an image of a politician or anyone else in action. This action, and what is occurring around the subject, supplies the narrative. The picture of Lincoln seated inflexible in his bearing is a stark contrast to the photographs taken today showing such images as Bush striding across an aircraft carrier. For most of the 20th century, painting attempted to portray our inner souls and their struggles, through different forms of abstraction, while photography dealt with capturing everyday reality and narrative.
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From the moment Cindy Sherman burst onto the scene in the 1970's, fictionally creating a setting while candidly snapping a shot of her self in action, it seemed as though photography had supplanted painting as the most relative art form. Not only was it being used as the premiere narrative medium of choice, but it was also finding a strong foothold in both the performance and conceptual fields as a documentary device.
A decade earlier, groups of painters had begun to use the photograph as a primary source in their work. From Warhol and Raushenberg to Richard Estes and Alex Katz, these artists began to use photography (an art form once wholly inspired in practice by painting) as a tool to inform their paintings. Today, almost every practicing photographer and painter owes some allegiance towards the other medium no matter how difficult it is to discern. But as it was occurring, painters and critics revolted strongly against the lowering of barriers between photography and painting.
- Below left is another Degas that relies heavily upon photography. Above left is another example of Barths photography. Right is a picture by Richter.
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On the left is an early Estes painting and probably his most interesting canvas.
On the right is pretty much what Estes has done for the last thirty years. One painting after another that plays with linear perspective and window reflections.
