Susan Sontag
[Writer, theorist, and critic, b. 1933, New York, d. 2004, New York.]
The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.
George Bernard Shaw
[Writer, critic, and dramatist, b. 1856, Dublin, d. 1950, Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England.]
The hand of the painter is incurably mechanical: his technique is incurably artificial... The camera... is so utterly unmechanical.
Peter Schjeldahl
[Writer and critic, b. 1942, Fargo, North Dakota, lives in New York.]
The dominant problem of pictorial art since the nineteen-fifties is photography, and, by extension, film and video. The basilisk eye of the camera has withered the pride of handworked mediums. Painting survives on a case-by-case basis, its successes amounting to special exemptions from a verdict of history.
Cindy Sherman
[Artist, b. 1954, Glen Ridge, New Jersey, lives in New York.]
....I didn’t really have ideas of what I wanted to do with painting. That was when I thought, “Why am I wasting my time elaborately copying things when I could use a camera?”
Thomas Roma
[Photographer, b. 1950, Brooklyn, New York, lives in Brooklyn.]
Imagine what Masaccio or Leonardo would have done if they had an instrument with which they could point, push a button, and get an image.
Gerhard Richter
[Artist, b. 1932, Dresden, lives in Düsseldorf.]
The photograph is the only picture that can truly convey information, even if it is technically faulty and the object can barely be identified. A painting of a murder is of no interest whatever; but a photograph of a murder fascinates everyone.
Sigmar Polke
[Painter and photographer, b. 1941, Oels, Silesia, Germany (Now Poland), d. 2010, Cologne, Germany.]
I don’t see a big difference between painting and photography. Moreover, such distinctions mean nothing to me.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
[Photographer and painter, b. 1908, Chanteloup, France, d. 2004, Paris.]
The adventurer in me felt obliged to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world.
