Man, painting must have been a million times cooler before photographs were developed.
You may like to check out how (Western) artists responded to photography. Edgar Degas' paintings of horse races and ballet dancers are a great example. Photographers of the time hadn't quite worked out how to frame a photo, due to technical and other difficulties with this new medium. This meant that images were often cropped unusually, which introduced a new aesthetic. Degas and others picked up on this, with unusual cropping, blurry figures, and a candid, voyeuristic point of view.
I'd also recommend Egon Schiele's portraits and self portraits, in comparison with photos of him and his subjects, as an example of how things developed further.