Modern photography doomed Still Lifes as a common type of pairing
If you take drawing/painting class I guarantee you’ll do still lifes.
I think what OP means is that the invention if the photocamera left a lot of painters unemployed. Pralleling that to current times, where AI is threatening the jobs of many artists. Obviously still lives are still being made today, and a decade from now artists will likely still have a job as well, only the market is a lot smaller.
And cars cost the horses their jobs
And plenty of agricultural machines have removed thousands of jobs.
Humanity has been increasing efficiency since the dawn of humankind, there is nothing new there, not even with AI.
Even before AI I worked for a company that made ETL tools and that eliminated a bunch of people’s jobs, because you no longer needed to do manual work with excels, only once when you setup the ingestion process, ofc for that you need a higher skilled worker who could work with the program.
Nobody cared to photograph apples in a bowl or flowers. It was obvious the photographs were nowhere near as interesting as paintings unless you were particularly gifted with lights and a camera.
Personal portraits on the other hand, were far more useful on everyday basis and more accurate as photographs, even if some glamour was sacrificed in the trade off.
Still life was always considered the lowest tier of fine art in the hierarchy of genres. It was seen as mere rote or mechanical copying of what already existed with little creative additions.
