Why can the Imitation School become the first school in the history of photography?

The original photography did not appear as an art. The pioneers of photography at that time discovered that they could use the mysterious technology of "photography" to copy a person's appearance, which was better than the best portrait painter. are all accurate. Therefore, this attribute of accurate reproduction became the driving force for the development of photography for a long time in the beginning. On the other hand, it also inevitably determines that people will compare photography with painting, including all-round comparisons such as aesthetics and functionality. In fact, most of the early pioneers of photography came from the field of painting.

I don’t know what the poster’s definition of imitation painting is. I only know that there has been a popular school of pictorial photography since about the late 19th century (this is an early school in the history of photography).

As mentioned before, when photography gradually became practical, photographers (mostly painters) naturally began to demand the artistic attributes of photography. At first, photography and painting were so closely related that the art of painting was almost Comparative model of photography, which naturally led to pictorial photography (imitation school) becoming the earliest school in the history of photographic art!