It’s nothing new that artists reach for different technological tools to go beyond the limitations of manual creative methods. Camera obscura (which dates back to antiquity) helped painters accurately reproduce perspective and proportions of painted objects. Camera lucida allowed for an almost photographic reflection of the details of the painted object. Photography as we know it today was invented at the end of the 19th century. Even then, painters began to fear that it would deprive them of work and status, and take away their monopoly of capturing reality. However, photography became an autonomous field of art. Thanks to it, painters freed themselves from the need to faithfully represent the world and began to develop abstractionism and other directions in painting. The digital era was another groundbreaking stage in the history of art. Thanks to computers, graphic programs and the internet, artists have gained entirely new tools for expressing their creativity.
Camera obscura, source: wikipedia.org