The Collapse of Catholicism

When photography was invented in the middle of the 19th century some people feared that this new practice, especially when color would eventually be added to it, would doom the art of painting. Since the camera could represent visual reality much more accurately than could the paintbrush, painting would be less in demand, and the quality and quantity of painters would decline. Sooner or later the old art would fade away.

As everybody knows, the pessimists were wrong. So far from dooming the art of painting, photography liberated it from one of its non-essential functions, namely photography -- like representations of visible reality. What followed in the next few decades, beginning with the Impressionists, was an explosion of creativity in the art of painting. Freed from the need to provide accurate representations of reality, painting became more "pure." The artist was more free than ever to indulge his creative impulses and inspirations.