14d • General discussion
The AI Artist’s Paradox: The Lens Sees Too Much, The Mind Selects
The way an artist "talks" to his audience is actually dead simple: He expresses himself not by what he says, but by what he has the balls to leave out.
It sounds like a mystery, but it’s just tradecraft.
When an artist looks at a subject, something hits him. It gives him a "thrill." Maybe it’s the specific curve of a woman’s silhouette, the sharp folds of a silk dress, or the raw texture of a New Mexico arroyo. It could be a long-unremembered dream or a splash of color hanging in a storm-broken sky.
Whatever it is, his job is to hunt down that "thrill" and pin it to the canvas for the rest of us to see.
The Art of the Edit
The giants—Pyle, Sargent, Wyeth, Frazetta, and the greatest of them all, J.M.W. Turner—didn't just record what was in front of them. They edited it.
Even when they painted the same subjects, the results were worlds apart. Monet famously said, "We follow the one called Turner," yet his work was his own because his selection was his own.
As Andrew Loomis puts it in these pages: "The lens sees too much. The eye selects."
A camera is a mechanical snitch. It sees every distracting mole, every stray thread, and every irrelevant detail with the same cold, boring focus. But the mind of a painter is selective.
Directing the Eye
An artist speaks by deciding what matters and what doesn't. He says:
- "Look here—this is the soul of the image."
- "Ignore that—it’s just noise."
By piling detail onto a beautiful face, or amping up the contrast on a muscular horizon, he forces the viewer’s eye to move exactly where he wants, when he wants. He’s pointing you toward that "Shock of Truth" that hit him in the first place.
The Tool is Irrelevant
It doesn't matter if you’re using a burnt stick, a camera, or a Neural Network and a keyboard.
When you’re prompting an AI, you’re still an artist if—and only if—you are emphasizing the essential and de-emphasizing the garbage. If you just take the "slick" image the machine spits out without choosing what to highlight, you aren't an artist; you're just a bystander.
The "Art" happens in the selection. It happens when you decide what stays, what goes, and what gives you that thrill.
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The AI Artist’s Paradox: The Lens Sees Too Much, The Mind Selects
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