Art Appreciation: The Invention of Photography and it's Impact on Early Modern Painting

This three-hour session explores how the invention of photography, from the 1830s, reshaped artistic practice, particularly influencing the Impressionist painters. We will begin with a brief history of early photographic techniques, from Niépce’s heliographs to Daguerreotypes and Talbot’s calotypes, examining their impact on visual culture.

The discussion will then focus on how photography challenged traditional painting, prompting artists to rethink composition, perspective, and subject matter. Impressionist painters, including Monet, Degas, and Renoir, responded by embracing looser brushwork, capturing fleeting moments, and experimenting with light and movement—qualities reminiscent of photographic snapshots. Degas in particular incorporated photographic framing techniques, cropping figures in ways that mimicked spontaneous photographic compositions. Also, these artists focused on something the photograph could not do then: bright colours.

We will consider whether photography liberated painters from the need for realism or introduced new artistic constraints.