Sergei Tretyakov
[Writer, critic, and artist, b. 1892, Guldiga, Russia (now Kuldigas, Latvia), d. 1939, Moscow.]
Every young boy with a camera wages war against the easel painters, and every little reporter-factographer can turn his pen into a mortal weapon against literature.
(1928) 
John Berger
[Writer and critic, b. 1926, London, d. 2017, Paris.]
A photograph is static because it has stopped time. A painting or drawing is static because it encompasses time.
Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
People believe in the reality of photographs, but not in the reality of paintings. That gives photographers an enormous advantage. Unfortunately, photographers also believe in the reality of photographs.
Brassaï (Gyula Halász)
[Photographer, b. 1889, Brassó, Transylvania, Hungary (now Romania), d. 1984, Eze, Alpes-Maritimes, France.]
Photography is the very conscience of painting. It constantly reminds the latter of what it must not do.
Vik Muniz
[Artist, b. 1961, Sao Paulo, Brazil, lives in New York.]
Now that photography is a digital medium, the ghost of painting is coming to haunt it: photography no longer retains a sense of truth. I think that's great, because it frees photography from factuality, the same way photography freed painting from factuality in the mid-nineteenth century.
Tom Wolfe
[Writer, b. 1930, Richmond, Virginia, d. 2018, New York.]
It was the unspoken curse of the medium, which went: “Photography is not really creative.” Naturally no painter would be so gauche as to say publicly that photography was not an art form. Nevertheless, there was an unuttered axiom: “Painters create, photographers select.” Not all the enlightened lip service in the world could change that feeling. The condescension with which the most insignificant painter could look down upon an Ansel Adams, a Steichen, or a Stieglitz was absolutely breathtaking. If sneers gave off heat, Alfred Stieglitz himself would have ended up about the size and shape of a smoked oyster.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
Photography, not soft gutless painting, is best equipped to bore into the spirit of today.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
[Artist, b. 1841, Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, d. 1919, Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.]
Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits.
