The Interior Landscape

13   Art and Flow in Photography

The true artists are almost as rare a phenomenon among painters, sculptors, composers as among photographers.

—Paul Strand

Almost since its inception, photography has drawn criticism from painters and art critics. Examples are not difficult to find. In 1859, Baudelaire declared photography “the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies.” Almost 120 years later, writer Gore Vidal, criticizing the work of photographer Cecil Beaton, expressed a similar sentiment, claiming photography to be “the ‘art form’ of the untalented.”

To this day, at least in some quarters, tribal rivalry between photographers and painters often leads to friction, whether in the ...