It began from the human impulse to immortalize one s own reality, and to share it with others. As I addressed in the first paragraph, reality is different for everyone, so the necessity for exactness of depiction is relative to those who are trying to share or immortalize a moment. The painting of Jan Van Eyck is in many ways more real than a photographic reality, with an attention to detail that far surpasses that of the average photograph. Then you have Mark Rothko, whose bold color abstractions are depictions of his own reality, although they are completely absent of form. Both painting and photography are catalysts for producing observed re-creations of one s reality.
Painting however allows one to graft emotion into every bit of the art.
If we had to rely on reflex actions for our livelihoods, humans wouldn t have done so well in the evolutionary scheme of things. So the emotional variable that frees painters is the same one that restricts photographers. They can feel a certain way while taking the picture, but the picture is still taken the same way. Painters have poetic license over their work, to create or skew their reality as they please, and to display that original sentiment, that integral part of who they are, in their work. Its funny to me that I have chosen painting because of an intangible part of reality, something that isn t concrete, but no doubt real to all of us.