LIKE BREATH ON GLASS, or Living in a Whistler Moment

gloucester-harbor-nocturne-copyright-kim-smithJames McNeill Whistler once said “Paint should not be applied thick. It should be like breath on the surface of a pane of glass.” My question is, which came first, the “soft paintings” of the later half of the 19th and early 20th century or soft focus photos? Knowing that Edward Steichen transitioned from painting to photography, its not hard to imagine that Whistler and Innes were also using photography as a tool.