Photography and Painting Collide

Realism emerged at exactly the moment when photography began challenging painting's monopoly on visual documentation. The camera's ability to record reality with mechanical precision forced painters to reconsider what painting could offer that photography could not.

Some Realist painters embraced photography as a tool rather than a rival. Courbet, Degas, and others used photographs as reference material, adopting photographic compositions — cropped figures, unusual angles, candid moments — that gave their paintings a modern spontaneity impossible in traditional studio practice.