Painting and Photography

Painting has always been split between the symbolic and imitation of the outside world, with the best painters finding ways to incorporate both. But imitation of the real world requires deception in painting, a trick of the eye. This is achieved through the use of an optical illusion to depict objects in three dimensions since the canvas is a two-dimensional object.

Bazin felt that photography (and thereby film) freed the other arts from the burden of likeliness - This medium satisfies the human obsession with realism. Photography allows for viewers to trust intention. Whereas a painter, regardless of skill, is bound to an extent by their own subjectivity, a camera is essentially objective due to the mechanical intermediary between the object and its reproduction. “The objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all other picture-making.” (p.162) It has the effect of transferring the reality of the thing being photographed to its reproduction. 

 

 

Vincent Van Gogh's painting The Church at Auvers (left) next to a photograph of the church. What are the immediate differences between the two representations of building? Consider this as you progress through the module. From naturephotographers.net Links to an external site.

The psychology of figure or subject is what makes images superior according to Bazin. He saw the photographic image as time mummified on a celluloid strip. Bazin stated that "originality in photograph lies in the objective character of the camera and the personality of the filmmaker to create new perspectives."

Continue on to review the types of films that Bazin admired.