Painting and Photography by Davida Salvit

In the beginning of the semester, I was quite nervous about taking this class because most Art History seminars focus on painting. Painting has never been my interest, nor my forte. I am a photographer, and although I know how to paint, I don’t like to, and I tend to get bored by standard Art History classes that discuss paintings. However, I knew from the very beginning of the semester that my views of such classes would change. In the first few weeks of class, we learned about two paintings that made me realize that the painting and photography worlds collide more than I’ve realized— Van Eyck’s Portrait of Arnolfini, and Raphael’s School of Athens.

It took me a while to internalize how much painting and photography overlap, but the start to my realization began when we discussed Van Eyck’s Portrait of Arnolfini. We spoke about how incredible the painting was because of its hyper-realism-- every detail of the painting is in focus, and makes the painting look too realistic to be true. This got me thinking about how, as a photographer, such details are hardly ever achieved. Even when the camera is fully in focus and is on a high aperture setting, a distance as large as the one shown in Van Eyck’s portrait is hardly ever in focus the way that this painting is. Much to my advantage, I am also taking a History of Photography course this semester, and shortly after we learned about Van Eyck’s Portrait of Arnolfini, my History of Photography professor taught us about a group of photographers who named themselves “f/64.” This group of photographers tried to achieve, in essence, what Van Eyck did in his Portrait of Arnolfini—they wanted to get as much in focus as possible. However, what struck me the most was when my Photography professor told us about a photographer named Oscar Rejlander. He was a photographer whose specialty was combination printing. This meant that he took many negatives and cut and pasted them back together in order to achieve the exact scene he had imagined in his head. His main use for this type of printing was so that he could make all his subjects in focus. One of his most famous works was his The Two Ways of Life. In this photograph, he used over thirty negatives to create the scene that he wanted. Much to my surprise, when I saw the photograph, it resembled a painting we had discussed in our Art History class—Raphael’s School of Athens. Upon learning more about this photograph, it was brought to my attention that it was actually modeled after Raphael’s painting. Both works are in the same type of environment and have similar framing, and both works are about the paths we can take in life. While Raphael’s School of Athens focuses on the four main philosophies that existed at the time, Rejlander’s The Two Ways of Life focuses on the choice between morality and honesty, and sin and pleasure. In the same manner that Plato is seemingly showing the world to Aristotle, and Aristotle points to the physical world in Raphael’s painting, so too, a sage sends points two youths in two separate directions in Rejlander’s photograph. Both of these works focus on the decisions we need to make in life to become the people we want to be, and both show us a single main influence or sage that directs the youth where to go.

It truly amazed me to see how much a photograph and a painting could overlap, and it opened my eyes the rest of the semester to see where else I could notice this overlap occurring. Whether it was in this class, my History of Photography class, or on my own, I was able to realize how much of a painter I am as a practicing photographer, and how much painting affects my photography work in general.