How Does Photography Affect The Impressionist Movement?

Photography had so much more of an influence on the Impressionist movement than just photography in its own right. Photography influenced artists in their paintings, in their pastel works, in their sculpture and in seeing the world around them in a different way. Modern artists were influenced by the invention of the camera because it gave them a cropped composition and showed the tonal effects of light and dark in much finer detail than they could interpret with the naked eye. This technology made it easier for artists to capture the tone in their compositions in other mediums beyond photography as well.
Among modern artists influenced by photography were the Impressionists. To begin, several distinguishing elements and stylistic features
Baudelaire in fact, was one key opponent of it. He had strong sentiments about the medium in relationship to art as he reflected “If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.” He believed that photography was a “refuge of all failed painters with too little talent” and dismissed it as an art form, but rather accepted is a simple tool in the creation of art. Of course, to combat these fields of thought there were many who advocated for the art such as French scientist and writer Louis Figuier. He argued that photography, if anything, helped artists to make their works even more individualized and created because it allowed them to focus on subjectivity in their works since photographs took care of the accuracy of part. He also argued that photography now forces great artists to go beyond their talents and push the limits of their work beyond replicating what they saw in