Quote Originally Posted by normanduke View Post
It pains me greatly to name drop ( LOL ) but we're talking Art here.
I remember showing my self portrait to Andy Warhol. It was done very true to life, quite dramatic. I was at my physical best, a mere 19 years old and longed for approval from Le Maitre.

He said, very sweetly ( there wasn't a nasty bone in his body ) and a touch dismissingly : " Yes. But you know, photography made all of this obsolete."

I think my carreer in Art ended at that moment because he was right.
He was wrong, though.

History has shown he was wrong, unless you're thinking of painting as a purely reproductive craft. If your self-portrait was merely a photographic rendition of your face, then yes, that form of documentary is all but obsolete[1], as the mechanism for reproducing what is in front of us has been vastly simplified by photography.

However, interpretative and expressive painting is still alive and kicking.

[1] Not quite obsolete if you consider courtroom artists.