Photoartists the New Impressionist of the 21th Century

In the 1830's and 1840's the Church and nobility were basically destitute. Patrons of the past like the Church and nobility had required artists to paint paintings that told a dramatic Church inspired statement or a romantic exotic subject matter. With the rise of the new affluent merchant and robber-baryons middle class, art interests change to subjects about contemporary life, secular, and emotional feelings. The new middle class wanted to propagandize their wealth and successes. Art became more about "what I have" than about "the after life".

New inventions brought new values. Life was moving at a quicker pace. Railroads, steamboats and the telegraph communications quicken the pace even faster. Time was money. Money could not wait. Everyone was in a hurry. Everyone was innovating. Everyone was rebelling.

Journalistic criticism became the standard for keeping up the pace. These new rich relied on the journalistic critics to tell them what was art and what one should buy. In France the press and journalistic critics established the standards of what was art and what was not.
Salons of art became the established standard of artistic values.

The starving and innovative artists rebelled against these standards of the salon establishment.

In 1839 the photographic process became public and quickly grew into competition with the artists. By 1871 a way of using Gelatin was invented by Dr. Richard Maddox, which led to the development of the dry plate process. Making a photograph cheaper and quicker to produce quickly had an affect on the art purchasing public. Why buy a painting of your favorite wife, child or dog when you could get a near-like image in a photograph.

In 1874 in France a group of artists, among them were Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, and Berthe Morisot, left their studios, and began painting what they saw around them in the open air. Much like the new invention of instantaneous photography that captured the image quickly; they used quick economical brushstrokes, capturing fleeting moments and responding directly to the subject to produce a finished product in hours not days or weeks.

Edwin Land founded the Polaroid Corporation to manufacturer his new one-step process, developing and printing photographic camera. The first poloroid camera was sold to the public in November, 1948. Now the photographers were in trouble. Now everyone was an instantaneous photographer. More problems for the artist. How were they going to keep up?

Desktop publishing began in 1985 with the introduction of MacPublisher. This WYSIWYG layout program of desktop typeset printing exploded in 1985 with the introduction of the Apple LaserWriter printer. Then came PageMaker software from Aldus which rapidly became the DTP (desktop typeset printing) industry standard software. Now the photographers were in trouble. The artists are beginning to get a foot back into the art world.

In 2001 the Giclee Printers Association (GPA) was formed. Giclee printing now had standards. Standards that distinct highest quality giclee printing from lower quality ink-jet printing. The term: "Tru Giclee" created by GPA means highest quality.

Giclee prints can be found in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Museum of Modern Art. Giclees have also been bought and sold in prestigious auctions worldwide and have sold for thousands of dollars.

So, now the artist, the photographer, the computer, the printer make it possible for these great works of art.

Art has now become more of an expression of the soul - the soul of the artist - the soul of the object - the soul of the viewer.

Art has moved from impression to expression.

Photoart Artists operate at the cutting edge of art. The image is captured. The image is manipulated in the computer and by the Artist. The image is spit out in little dots (that is what giclee means). The image is an impression of what the artist intended and yet, the final image is an expression of what the viewer wishes it to be. A gift. An art piece. A piece of history. An expression of a soul.