> Interestingly, I'm taking a History of Photography class right now, and we were just talking about the Impressionists the other day. They do relate to photography... owe quite a lot to it, in fact. The invention of photography freed up a lot of artists from painting strict realism, and the Impressionists in particular were inspired by photography to capture the essence, the 'impression' of a single moment in paint. Not necesarily realistically, but quickly and with feeling, so that the absolute essence of the scene was held in the work. Pretty cool stuff.
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> Sosi"art history is awesome"qui

Art history is quite interesting.

I was reading a very similar treatment in a book on the history of film I picked up at a book sale (it's about 10 years out of date, but it was only a couple of pounds), although the author was going a bit overboard and maybe needed to get out in the fresh air a bit more. I mean, Turner was producing "antiphotographic" landscapes neartly 30 years before Daguerre got his system up and running.

Interestingly, the book argues that Cubism, although breaking away from photography by breaking the normal conventions of atmosphere and light, parallels the concept of pictures in motion by presenting multiple perspectives silmetaneously. Again, you can't draw a direct comparison - it's not as if "The Great Train Robbery" inspired "Nude Descending a Staircase".

If it did, I'd be scared.

Bourne