photographical templates for famous paintings
While some photographers at the beginning of the photographic age tried to mimic the visual aesthetics of painting to establish their “technical images” as another art form, it’s interesting to see how photography had an impact on painting. The technique of painting with the help of tools like the camera obscura or different ways of using projections has been established before the first daguerreotype was created. But photography could be seen as the perfection of these kind of helping tools.
There is an interesting blog post which lists several examples of paintings by Gaugin, Cezanne, van Gogh, Lautrec & Degas which have been produced with the help of a photographical template. See for yourself:
Gaugin:
Cezanne:
Lautrec:
van Gogh:
Degas:
For more examples and information follow this link
I think the most pronounced effect photography had on painting is that it killed the realistic or classic painting. This again gave the painters a kick to investigate their medium in new forms, making the late 19th century and especially the 20th century maybe the most interesting century for painting. In many ways I think going away from the realistic paintings gave many painters a new freedom and let us all approach the paintings differently. Of course, realistic paintings and portraits used to be bread and butter for many painters whereas this market is almost totally out of the fine art market today.