George Bernard Shaw? Henrietta Clopath? Sidney Trefusis? Charles Baudelaire? Apocryphal? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems are now capable of rapidly constructing images, videos, 3d-objects, and text. The current output displays flaws, but the quality and variety continues to improve.
Artists are experiencing a volatile mixture of wonder, anticipation, uncertainty, fear, resentment, and disgust. An analogous technological upheaval occurred as photography matured. Here are two statements of prediction about the disruption that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century:
(1) Nine-tenths of painting will be extinguished by the competition of photographs.
(2) Color photography will eventually supersede the art of painting.
The first statement has been linked to the playwright George Bernard Shaw, and the second statement has been linked to the painter Henrietta Clopath. However, I have not seen any solid citations. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1887 George Bernard Shaw published “An Unsocial Socialist” which featured an eccentric protagonist named Sidney Trefusis who was enamored with photography. Trefusis was asked to predict the future of the arts. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
“Photography perfected in its recently discovered power of reproducing colour as well as form! Historical pictures replaced by photographs of tableaux vivants formed and arranged by trained actors and artists, and used chiefly for the instruction of children. Nine-tenths of painting as we understand it at present extinguished by the competition of these photographs; and the remaining tenth only holding its own against them by dint of extraordinary excellence!”
Shaw’s character Trefusis condemned painters and etchers who derided photography:2
“The artists are sticking to the old barbarous, difficult, and imperfect processes of etching and portrait painting merely to keep up the value of their monopoly of the required skill. They have left the new, more complexly organized, and more perfect, yet simple and beautiful method of photography in the hands of tradesmen, sneering at it publicly, and resorting to its aid surreptitiously.”
Of course, Shaw’s personal views may have differed from those of the protagonist in his novel. Today, the number of digital color photographs vastly exceeds the number of paintings and etchings although most photographs are not snapped to display high aesthetic values.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1859 the French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire denounced the emerging technology of photography in the pages of “Revue Française” of Paris:3
. . . cela tombe sous le sens que l’industrie, faisant irruption dans l’art, en devient la plus mortelle ennemie . . .
. . . it is obvious that this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy . . .
A separate Quote Investigator article about the quotation immediately above is available here.
In 1866 an anonymous opinion piece in “The Belfast News-Letter” of Northern Ireland contained the negation of the second statement under investigation:4
We hear every day of new processes and styles of coloring photographs, but we imagine that no new discovery will ever supersede the art of painting in oil. The art that was practised by Titian and Vandyck – whose portraits stand unrivalled, even in these days, when the art of painting, like every other, has made such great advances – will never be old-fashioned.
In 1887 Shaw published “An Unsocial Socialist”, and in 1890 an anonymous piece in “The Hampshire Advertiser” of Southampton, England summarized the opinion of Shaw’s protagonist:5
The eccentric hero of “An Unsocial Socialist” preferred photography to etching, and believed photography in colours would eventually supersede the art of painting. Well, who knows!
In 1898 “The Wombat” periodical of Geelong, Australia printed a piece by H. Dentry who claimed the following:6
. . . it was asserted in a recent leading article in one of our august “Dailies” that in all probability colour photography will in course of time supersede the art of painting, I for one very much doubt whether it will do so, and more, devoutly hope it will not.
In 1901 painter Henrietta Clopath published the essay “Art Versus Mechanism” in the journal “Brush and Pencil” of Chicago, Illinois. Clopath presented a counterpoint to the apprehensions of fellow artists:7
The fear has sometimes been expressed that photography would in time entirely supersede the art of painting. Some people seem to think that when the process of taking photographs in colors has been perfected and made common enough, the painter will have nothing more to do. We need not fear anything of the kind.
Clopath’s 1901 essay recognized that photography was a distinct emerging artform:8
The best works in photography are not perfect imitations. The photographer is more or less an artist in his way of posing, arranging, and finishing. He can attain beautiful results in his line . . .
In 2016 the website “JSTOR Daily” mentioned Clopath’s article and published an excerpt:9
Photography was invented in the 1820s and though it remained a fledgling technology in the few decades thereafter, many artists and art critics still saw it as a threat, as the artist Henrietta Clopath voiced in a 1901 issue of Brush and Pencil:
The fear has sometimes been expressed that photography would in time entirely supersede the art of painting. Some people seem to think that when the process of taking photographs in colors has been perfected and made common enough, the painter will have nothing more to do.
In conclusion, in 1887 George Bernard Shaw published a novel in which the main character admired the emerging technology of color photography and predicted: “Nine-tenths of painting as we understand it at present extinguished by the competition of these photographs”. The opinion of a character in a novel may deviate from the author of the novel.
The forecast that photography would supersede painting has a long history. The negation of this idea was printed in 1866, and its affirmation was ascribed to a character by 1890. In a 1901 essay Henrietta Clopath mentioned the fear that “photography would in time entirely supersede the art of painting”, but she strongly disagreed with that viewpoint.
Image Notes: Silhouette of a person holding a camera from Michael Henry at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to the anonymous person whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1887, An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw, Chapter 12, Quote Page 163, Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Company, London. (HathiTrust Full View) link ↩︎
- 1887, An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw, Chapter 12, Quote Pages 161 and 1962, Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Company, London. (HathiTrust Full View) link ↩︎
- 1859, Revue Française, Cinquième Année (Fifth Year), Tome XVII (Volume 17), Lettre a M. Le Directeur De La Revue Française Sur Le Salon De 1859 (Letter to The Editor of the French Review on the Salon of 1859), (by Charles Baudelaire), Section 2: Le Public Moderne Et La Photographie (The Modern Public and Photography), Start Page 257, Quote Page 265, Aux Bureaux de La Revue Française, Paris, France. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1866 September 21, The Belfast News-Letter, Fine Arts In Belfast, Quote Page 3, Column 3, Belfast, Antrim, Northern Ireland. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1890 September 13, The Hampshire Advertiser, Literary Notices: The Magazines, Quote Page 7, Column 7, Southampton, Hampshire, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1898 January, The Wombat, Volume 3, Number 2, Photography in Art, and Art in Photography by H. Dentry, Start Page 34, Quote Page 35, Published by Gordon Technical College, Geelong, Australia. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1901 March, Brush and Pencil, Volume 7, Number 6, Genuine Art Versus Mechanism by Henrietta Clopath, Start Page 331, Quote Page 333, The Brush and Pencil Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1901 March, Brush and Pencil, Volume 7, Number 6, Genuine Art Versus Mechanism by Henrietta Clopath, Start Page 331, Quote Page 333, The Brush and Pencil Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois. (Google Books Full View) ↩︎
- Website: JSTOR Daily, Article title: When Photography Wasn’t Art, Article author: Jordan G. Teicher, Date on website: February 6, 2016, Website description: JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. (Accessed daily.jstor.org on Feb 12, 2025) link ↩︎