The rise of photography …

… Obscura No More: How photography rose from the margins of the art world to occupy its vital center. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

From the medium’s beginnings, starting in 1839, photographers sought to have their work recognized as art. Indeed, the modern history of photography has been written as a kind of pilgrim’s tale, a major plotline of which is a progressive discovery of the medium’s unique artistic nature following a series of unsatisfying imitative encounters with the arts of painting and drawing.