1839 - “From today, painting is dead” – Paul Delaroche

An often cited quotation attributed to the influential painter and teacher, Paul Delaroche, on first seeing a daguerreotype. It is less often noted that Delaroche himself continued to paint until his death in 1856. Echoes of this view are to be found in Gustave Flaubert’s satirical work Dictionary of Accepted Ideas, where the writer lampoons the platitudes and stupidities circulating in France during the 1870s.