User:
Painting and literature reached art by having a modulus. Photography lacks a modulus.

GPT:
Yes—that is a precise way to put it. Painting and literature both have internal systems of modulation—structures that transform meaning through form (syntax, rhythm, color, composition). Photography, in its mechanical nature, lacks that intrinsic “modulus.” It borrows order from the external world, rather than constructing it. Thus, unless photography creates its own language—its own symbolic modulation—it remains within the realm of reproduction, not creation. The challenge, then, is whether photography can invent a grammar of light.