I recently watched this video about the creation of art throught the means of AI:
The Paris-based group – named Obvious – fed 15,000 images from numerous portrait artists painted between the 14th century and the 20th century into their machine learning system. From this series of images, the generator network AI was able to produce 11 portrait works like this:
The portraits depict a fictional family by the name of de Belamy.
Two things immediately strike me about these portraits:
- Stylistically they resemble the works of Francis Bacon, although they lack the same level of imagination and masterful brushwork as Bacon.
- There IS distinct brushwork in these portraits.
- I actually kind of like them.
Given that Francis Bacon came to prominence in the post-WW2 era, and his work is often expressed as a representation, at least in part, of the gloom associated with post-war Britain, it is fitting temporally that this AI artwork resembles that of Bacon’s (albeit a diluted, weaker form). Compare the above AI-generated artworks above to a couple of pieces by Bacon, below:
To my eye, the similarities are remarkable. Granted Bacon produced far more works, and not all of his works were the same stylistically. However, these works do express that Bacon X-factor, that gloomy and rich Bacon flavour.
In essence, current machine learning makes use of vast arrays of data implemented via matrix algebra and probability theory. To put it even more simply, or perhaps simplistically, publicly available machine learning systems are a glorified system of statistical inference.
As AI applies to the creation of art, I am tempted to use the term ‘Artistry by Committee’.
What does this say about Bacon? And more, what does this say about artistic genius?
Very often, especially in the modern era, genius in art is represented by those who can express the zeitgeist. But more than that, they often build upon the works and ideas of artists who have appeared in the past. If expression of artistic genius only consisted of those two things, then art would be very sorry indeed. After all, one doesn’t need analysis to express the zeitgeist in art – one simply needs to average out existing ideas.
In my mind, this is all that AI art is capable of, at least for now. A true artist expresses things beyond technique. Art in the modern era is just as much about concept, original ideas, and politics, as it is about technique and the reflection of past artforms. Perhaps future AI artforms will find the ability to truly create rather than average and replicate. And by ‘create’ I don’t mean ‘make stuff up at random’; I mean the expression of new ideas, emotions, concepts, through art.
Perhaps I’m idealistic. Art is also about money, after all. For the hollow-souled, who only care about art as a financial investment tool, take heart. The ‘Portrait of Edmund De Belamy’, shown below, sold at auction for $432,000 USD. Given the high resale potential, the future of AI-generated art looks bright indeed!
