Kinds of Authenticity — Part I

The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art. —Caspar David Friedrich In this age of powerful processing tools and artificial intelligence (AI) models capable of generating photorealistic images, it’s no surprise that so many photographers go out of their way to present themselves and their work as “authentic,” assuming implicitly that the term is self-explanatory and refers to a singular, unambiguous quality: the quality of representing things as they “really are.” Alas, this assumption is false, and there is much more to authenticity than just realistic photographic depiction. In a 1993 article titled “The Two Authenticities of the Photographic Media,” Rudolf Arnheim suggested (as the title indicates) that there are two forms of authenticity in visual art, and that the difference between these two forms is especially problematic in photographic art. He wrote: The figurative arts are always dealing with two kinds of authenticity. They are…