The invention of photography in the 1830s would go on to affect painting and other visual arts in a way and on a scale never before imagined. In what the Observer described as "one of the most interesting and enjoyable books of the year," Aaron Scharf traces the interaction of these art forms up to the present day, showing how they have come to occupy two distinct—and equally important—roles in cultural life. Photography, he argues, replaced the landscape and portrait painter: the artist, freed from the dictates of realism and still able to benefit from the intrinsic peculiarities of the photographic form, was left free to pursue their own intuitive artistic vision. With the help of photographs and paintings, the author analyzes the influence of photography on the realists, impressionists, and cubists; shows how it aided the work of artists such as Ingres, Delacroix, and Degas; discusses the work of early photographers (Muybridge, Julia Margaret Cameron); and concludes with a section on art and photography in the twentieth century.