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Живопись, фотография и возвышенное (Painting, Photography and the Sublime) [translated into Russian]

This article explores the relationship between painting and photography in modern and postmodern art. Photography can be understood as the next technological step after Renaissance perspective that took over the task of representation at a time when Romantic aesthetics found imitation lacking. The development of abstraction in painting may have been stimulated by photography taking over the role of representation and one of the most powerful justifications of abstraction lies in the Romantic conception of the sublime which represents that which is beyond appearances. But in the early 20c artists became aware of the capacity for sublimity in photography stemming from its ability to see beyond what the eye can see. This is evident in the impact of the scientific photography of Marey and Muybridge on Balla and Boccioni. Walter Benjamin noted this feature of photography in 1936 and was inspired by Dada photomontage which not only used photography but also photomechanical reproduction. Following Dada photomontage Breton understood photography as a mode of thought, a bridge between the image and the word. Abstraction was the first answer to photography and its rationale was sublimity be that rational or spiritual. But in the second half of the 20c artists elaborated on Dada photomontage exploiting the capacity of montage to subvert reality and create new realities. Following conceptual photography of the 1970s the role of photography in art grew with post-pop, conceptualist approaches to mass media informed by Baudrillardian notions of simulacra and simulation, appropriation, and the use of mass media “spectacle” (Guy Debord) as a means of social conditioning. In the late 20c painting and photography became partners in fine art. The two media possess very similar metaphysical properties both conforming to the Duchampian notion of the 'infrathin'—a surface that not only represents but also transcends the real.

In the early 20c artists became aware of the capacity for sublimity in photography evident in the impact of the scientific photography of Marey and Muybridge on Balla and Boccioni. Benjamin stressed the subversive power of photomontage and Breton understood photography as a bridge between the image and the word. In late 1970s conceptual photography evolved into approaches to mass media informed by notions of simulacra and simulation. It is argued that painting and photography possess similar metaphysical properties both conforming to the Duchampian notion of the 'infrathin'—a surface that not only represents but also transcends the real.