Realism and the Abstract

I enjoyed reading Bazin’s essay as it offered interesting analysis regarding the psychoanalytic basis of photography. He states that the purpose of photography, much like mummification practiced in ancient Egypt, served to preserve one’s likeness as a response to a primal fear of death. This reminded me of Benjamin’s concept of the cult value of art. In both, photographic portraits can be seen as connections between the viewers who are present and the subject that are preserved. As time progressed, Bazin proposes that the nature of art shifted from preserving the memories of loved ones to creating “an ideal world in the likeness of the real.” However, this artistic preoccupation with realism was redefined with the advent of photography. He argued that photography is superior to art in capturing realistic representations of the world; thus, freeing art from its preoccupation with realism. In contrast, Kracauer, in his essay offers up a different view on the relationship between painting and photography. In Kracauer’s essay, he cites Duchamp’s Nude Descending the Staircase as an example in which painting has benefitted from photography. To him, the experimentation with strobe photography and cinematic film did not force art away from the realistic into the abstract but instead contributed to its transformation. This transformation was aided by the photographic medium’s ability to help artist perceive an optical unconscious that not only provided the artist with a different view of “reality” but also transformed the boundaries art itself. In this context, the realism of photography and Bazin’s concept of photography’s role in freeing paintings from its preoccupation with realism becomes more complicated. As Kracauer pointed out, while photography might be a better representation of reality compared to paintings, it still reduces our colorful three-dimensional reality into a monochrome two-dimensional image. As a result, I believe that rather than simply freeing paintings from realism, the relationship between photography and art is more complex and synergetic than that proposed by Bazin in his essay.