|
| snip
|
| Ignoring that the above statements involve a very controversial realist
| metaphysics, why can't a painting record "what was there" as well?
|

It can, but the viewer can't easily be shure it didn't come from the
painter's fantasy.
To put it in a nicer way: painting has an advantage to 'real' photography
because reality is not the only source of inspiration, fantasy is another
one.

| Consider portrait paintings. Couldn't someone respond on first seeing a
| painting, "you've captured my daughter very well! Better in fact than
| any photograph of her!"

agree
but don't forget: maybe this father never had the occasion of meeting a real
good photographer ;-)

| Certainly there is a different causal chain involved. With photography
| the direct causal chain of image capture is purely mechanical, as the
| chain does not go through a person's mind. A person is involved
| (choosing the scene, making the technical calculations...), but this is
| not the same thing. With painting, a human mind is directly in the
| causal chain of image capture.
|
| This distinction has been used in two ways. First, advocates of painting
| denied that photography is an art. Second, advocates of photography
| denied that inkjet printing is an art. I suggest that the distinction in
| question supports neither claim.

true. The way the output was made is unimportant. Nor is the input. It's
just about showing reality.

| -Peter De Smidt