Ironic. The frequency and predictability of this type of response — “This criticism of new technology is invalid because someone was wrong once in the past about unrelated technology” — means there might as well be an LLM posting these replies to every applicable article. It’s boring and no one learns anything.
It would be a lot more interesting to point out the differences and similarities yourself. But then if you wanted an interesting discussion you wouldn’t be posting trite flamebait in the first place, would you?
Interesting comparison. I remember watching a video on that. Landscape paintings, portraits, etc, was an art that has taken an enormous nosedive. We, as humans, have missed out on a lot of art because of the invention of the camera. On the other hand, the benefits of the camera need no elaboration. Currently AI had a lot of foot guns though, which I don't believe the camera had. I hope AI gets to that point too.
>We, as humans, have missed out on a lot of art because of the invention of the camera.
I so severely doubt this to the point I'd say this statement is false.
As we go toward the past art was expensive and rare. Better quality landscape/portraits were exceptionally rare and really only commissioned by those with money, which again was a smaller portion of the population in the time before cameras. It's likely there are more high quality paintings now per capita than there were ever in the past, and the issue is not production, but exposure to the high quality ones. Maybe this is what you mean by 'miss out'?
In addition the general increase in wealth coupled with the cost of art supplies dropping this opens up a massive room for lower quality art to fill the gap. In the past canvas was typically more expensive so sucky pictures would get painted over.
> Eloquent, moving, and more-or-less exactly what people said when cameras first hit the scene.
This is a non sequitur. Cameras have not replaced paintings, assuming this is the inference. Instead, they serve only to be an additional medium for the same concerns quoted:
The process, which is an iterative one, is what leads you
towards understanding what you actually want to make,
whether you were aware of it or not at the beginning.
Just as this is applicable to refining a software solution captured in code, just as a painter discards unsatisfactory paintings and tries again, so too is it when people say, "that picture didn't come out the way I like, let's take another one."
Photography’s rapid commercialisation [21] meant that many painters – or prospective painters – were tempted to take up photography instead of, or in addition to, their painting careers. Most of these new photographers produced portraits. As these were far cheaper and easier to produce than painted portraits, portraits ceased to be the privilege of the well-off and, in a sense, became democratised [22].
Some commentators dismissed this trend towards photography as simply a beneficial weeding out of second-raters. For example, the writer Louis Figuier commented that photography did art a service by putting mediocre artists out of business, for their only goal was exact imitation. Similarly, Baudelaire described photography as the “refuge of failed painters with too little talent”. In his view, art was derived from imagination, judgment and feeling but photography was mere reproduction which cheapened the products of the beautiful [23].
What stole the joy you must have felt, fleetingly, as a child that beheld the world with fresh eyes, full of wonder?
Did you imagine yourself then, as your are now, hunched over a glowing rectangle. Demanding imperiously that the world share your contempt for the sublime.
Share your jaundiced view of those that pour the whole of themselves into the act of creation, so that everyone might once again be graced with wonder anew.
I hope you can find a work of art that breaks you free of your resentment.
Art history. It's how we ended up with Impressionism, for instance.
People felt (wrongly) that traditional representational forms like portraiture were threatened by photography. Happily, instead of killing any existing genres, we got some interesting new ones.
Ironic. The frequency and predictability of this type of response — “This criticism of new technology is invalid because someone was wrong once in the past about unrelated technology” — means there might as well be an LLM posting these replies to every applicable article. It’s boring and no one learns anything.
It would be a lot more interesting to point out the differences and similarities yourself. But then if you wanted an interesting discussion you wouldn’t be posting trite flamebait in the first place, would you?
Note that we still have not solved cameras or even cars.
The biggest lesson I am learning recently is that technologists will bend over backwards to gaslight the public to excuse their own myopia.
Interesting comparison. I remember watching a video on that. Landscape paintings, portraits, etc, was an art that has taken an enormous nosedive. We, as humans, have missed out on a lot of art because of the invention of the camera. On the other hand, the benefits of the camera need no elaboration. Currently AI had a lot of foot guns though, which I don't believe the camera had. I hope AI gets to that point too.
>We, as humans, have missed out on a lot of art because of the invention of the camera.
I so severely doubt this to the point I'd say this statement is false.
As we go toward the past art was expensive and rare. Better quality landscape/portraits were exceptionally rare and really only commissioned by those with money, which again was a smaller portion of the population in the time before cameras. It's likely there are more high quality paintings now per capita than there were ever in the past, and the issue is not production, but exposure to the high quality ones. Maybe this is what you mean by 'miss out'?
In addition the general increase in wealth coupled with the cost of art supplies dropping this opens up a massive room for lower quality art to fill the gap. In the past canvas was typically more expensive so sucky pictures would get painted over.
The footgun cameras had was exposure time.
1826 - The Heliograph - 8+ hours
1839 - The Daguerreotype - 15–30 Mins
1841 - The Calotype - 1–2 Mins
1851 - Wet Plate Collodion - 2–20 Secs
1871 - The Dry Plate - < 1 Second.
So it took 45 years to perfect the process so you could take an instant image. Yet we complain after 4 years of LLMs that they're not good enough.
> Eloquent, moving, and more-or-less exactly what people said when cameras first hit the scene.
This is a non sequitur. Cameras have not replaced paintings, assuming this is the inference. Instead, they serve only to be an additional medium for the same concerns quoted:
Just as this is applicable to refining a software solution captured in code, just as a painter discards unsatisfactory paintings and tries again, so too is it when people say, "that picture didn't come out the way I like, let's take another one."
Photography’s rapid commercialisation [21] meant that many painters – or prospective painters – were tempted to take up photography instead of, or in addition to, their painting careers. Most of these new photographers produced portraits. As these were far cheaper and easier to produce than painted portraits, portraits ceased to be the privilege of the well-off and, in a sense, became democratised [22].
Some commentators dismissed this trend towards photography as simply a beneficial weeding out of second-raters. For example, the writer Louis Figuier commented that photography did art a service by putting mediocre artists out of business, for their only goal was exact imitation. Similarly, Baudelaire described photography as the “refuge of failed painters with too little talent”. In his view, art was derived from imagination, judgment and feeling but photography was mere reproduction which cheapened the products of the beautiful [23].
https://www.artinsociety.com/pt-1-initial-impacts.html#:~:te...
Cameras have not replaced paintings, assuming this is the inference.
You wouldn't have known that, going by all the bellyaching and whining from the artists of the day.
Guess what, they got over it. You will too.
What stole the joy you must have felt, fleetingly, as a child that beheld the world with fresh eyes, full of wonder?
Did you imagine yourself then, as your are now, hunched over a glowing rectangle. Demanding imperiously that the world share your contempt for the sublime. Share your jaundiced view of those that pour the whole of themselves into the act of creation, so that everyone might once again be graced with wonder anew.
I hope you can find a work of art that breaks you free of your resentment.
7 replies →
>> Cameras have not replaced paintings, assuming this is the inference.
> You wouldn't have known that, going by all the bellyaching and whining from the artists of the day.
> Guess what, they got over it.
You conveniently omitted my next sentence, which contradicts your position and reads thusly:
> You will too.
This statement is assumptive and gratuitous.
4 replies →
> Guess what, they got over it. You will too.
Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.
1 reply →
Source?
Art history. It's how we ended up with Impressionism, for instance.
People felt (wrongly) that traditional representational forms like portraiture were threatened by photography. Happily, instead of killing any existing genres, we got some interesting new ones.
Yeah, and cameras changed art forever.
If you don't like change, then my recommendation is to steer clear of careers in either art or technology.
people still make clay pots and paint landscapes
Creativity is not what would expect out of the Renaissance