In the recent past, we rarely question the status of photography as an art contrary to the mid-19 th century when it had many critics. For instance, Charles Baudelaire viewed photography as a mechanical process that had to be regarded as only a “servant of the arts and sciences.” He believed in nature and was of the opinion that art could only be the exact reproduction of nature. He was opposed to equating Arts and photography just because the latter could “give us every guarantee of exactitude that we could desire.” He also argued that photography was close to shorthand or printing than to fine art.
Charles and other detractors of photography viewed it as an invasion to the territories of arts leading to the impoverishment of the artistic genius who had begun seeking refuge in the photographic industry. According to him, photography was not supposed to encroach upon the realms of arts but should have supplemented the work of literature among other duties. He noted that art “depends solely upon the addition of something of a man’s soul” while photography neither created nor supplemented the work of art. He opined that photography had defined duties that included enriching the tourist’s album, providing information to corroborate the astronomer’s hypotheses as well as providing factual details to scholars.
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Thus, the invasion of photography to the imaginary work could be attributed to the diminishing self-respect of the artists given that they continue to bow down before external reality as opposed to expressing their dreams, aspirations and imaginations through art. The artists seem lost and can barely find their happiness through art given that they become more given to painting and other art work not because of what they dream but because of what they see.
