[basscomm]

Creating art, even via using something like Photoshop, is a skill that takes years of learning and practice to do well. Most people who appreciate art appreciate not only the art itself, but the time and skill that went into its creation.

When someone short-circuits the whole creative process by putting a prompt into a machine and having it spit out an art, there's nothing to appreciate.

[DocTomoe]

How to you estimate the 'time and skill' that went into the creation of a random piece of art? Is a portrait that took 50 hours to paint inherently more worthy than a virtually identical one that took 5 hours? Is the slower artist the better artist? Is a Bob Ross 'happy little trees, body of water, mountain in background'-image not artistically valuable because he does it in 20 minutes?

As for skill: I would argue that a random Banksy takes a lot less skill than the average Artemisia Gentileschi (admit it: you had to look her up). Yet, one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-Italian painters'.

Those are earnest questions, I want to understand the recently-recurring time-and-skill argument. What sort of people honestly look at a picture and ask 'yes, but how long did it take to make? How long had the artist to be trained for this?'

[crashabr]

> one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-talian painters'.

Who claims that 'baroque northern italian painters' are not artists? If anything, an unknown painter is much closer to art with capital A than Banksy, in the traditional hierarchy. So this is a weird framing.

As for time, this is both time taken to create and time spent practicing to reach a certain level of artistry. A speed painter is still an artist, and they reached their speed not by using an AI shortcut but by spending long hours practicing.

The underlying question is how do we tie art and legitimacy: society has always tied both, which is why we have institutions tasked with assigning legitimacy (museums), a hierarchy of art forms where the longest lived are seen as superior (painting over photography), and artists gain prestige not from a single art piece, but from a consistent production of works that are tied together by a shared identity.

On the other hand, a lot of the "pro" AI art discourse I've seen often boiled down to attempts to disconnect art from legitimacy. That's a tough hill to climb.

[basscomm]

> How to you estimate the 'time and skill' that went into the creation of a random piece of art?

You don't. Unless that's the kind of thing you're into, I guess.

> Is a portrait that took 50 hours to paint inherently more worthy than a virtually identical one that took 5 hours? Is the slower artist the better artist? Is a Bob Ross 'happy little trees, body of water, mountain in background'-image not artistically valuable because he does it in 20 minutes?

You can't quantify art that way. People work at different speeds. I can appreciate that something took some number of hours without knowing the precise number of hours.

> As for skill: I would argue that a random Banksy takes a lot less skill than the average Artemisia Gentileschi (admit it: you had to look her up). Yet, one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-Italian painters'.

Maybe, but I'm not qualified to make that comparison. Both are beyond my level of artistic ability (I've never studied art nor practiced much). I don't know why one thing or artist gets more popular than another while another who's just as talented (or maybe even moreso) languishes in obscurity. Skill is a factor, sure, but there's no formula that I'm aware of.

> What sort of people honestly look at a picture and ask 'yes, but how long did it take to make? How long had the artist to be trained for this?'

Maybe some people think of it that way. I don't know. I've never asked those questions about any art I consume. I just think something like, "wow, this looks nice, it must have taken a while" or "what would it take to make something like this, I wonder"

[clowncubs]

My personal experience: As an artist throughout my life, whether it be drawing, painting, or sculpting, I have been asked again and again how long it took me to make a piece. It is probably the most common question I get when I interact with people over my art. My experience has shown me people value the effort and time it takes to make something beautiful and unique. I recently began attending events/cons to share my sculpting and it was eye opening. Not only did people frown on A.I. generated art at these events, but I had to broadcast that my sculpting was not 3D printed. Quite a few visitors to my table let me know they appreciated my work was handmade.

[wpietri]

And on top of those things, I'd add that good artists use that time to deepen the work and their understanding of the work.

If you're doing, say, factory work, you can just zone out. You do the same thing over and over, and you do it well enough, but your mind is somewhere else.

But somebody who's truly during art is present in the work as they're doing it. They're up to something. I think that's a big part of why the work of serious artists changes over time. It's an exploration.

In contrast, look at some kitch producer like Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™. He was clearly successful financially. But I'd argue that there is little more to it than "AI" "art".

For me appreciating art always involves reaching for an understanding of the artist and the humanity we share. An Ansel Adams print is lovely, but ultimately I end up thinking not just about the image or the landscape. I think about being in the landscape. About the process of getting that one perfect photo. About what drives a person to seek that and to go to such incredible lengths. About how Adams saw the world.

If I'm going to think hard about some GenAI output, I'm going to appreciate the technology that went into it. But there's no more to think about the prompter than there is about somebody picking out clip art.

[thedevilslawyer]

> Most people who appreciate art appreciate not only the art itself, but the time and skill that went into its creation.

I call BS on this. Most people like something striking or beautiful or thought proviking. For the vast majority, the time or skill barely comes into context. You meant connoisseurs perhaps.