• Henley DFAS

The Invention of Photography and its Impact on Early Modern Painting

The Invention of Photography and its Impact on Early Modern Painting
Thursday 21st November 2024 (post AGM) at 10.30am only. Please note earlier time. Simultaneous transmission.
Dr Caroline Levisse
Invented at the end of the 1830s, photography triggered a visual revolution. At the time, some feared that photography would replace painting altogether. It certainly did not but painting was not left untouched either.
Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1873 - Gustave Le Gray, The Brig, 1856
 
In this lecture we will consider how photography participated in changing the face of painting in the second half of the 19th century. It introduced a new relationship between reality and its representation that influenced painters such as the Realists and the Impressionists. It also encouraged painters to explore new directions. Freed from having to record the external world, painters could focus on more intangible things (such as emotions) or on formal aspects (such as colour for its own sake).
(Please click on the blue print above to continue reading)
 
 
Dr Caroline Levisse is an art historian based in London. She was born in France where she studied art history before moving to Copenhagen. In Denmark, she focused on research work and completed a PhD on the relations between art and religion in contemporary Scandinavian art. After graduating in 2013, she moved to London and started teaching art history with adult education providers. She has since developed a range of courses focusing on 19th and early 20th century Western art. She has published articles in French and English in academic journals as well as magazines and newspapers, such as Church Times and Arts sacrés.