[Many] 'believe that art is, and can only be, the exact reproduction of nature.' Thus if an industrial process could give us a result identical to nature, that would be absolute art. An avenging God has heard the prayers of this multitude: Daguerre was his messiah. And then they said to themselves: Since photography provides us with every desirable guarantee of exactitude (they believe that, poor madmen!) 'art is photography.'

#CharlesBaudelaire on #photography, 1859 #IsPhotographyArt