Photography Spooked 19th-Century Artists. Should AI Scare You Now?

Is AI the photography of the 21st century?

Attend the event Digital Da Vincis: How Artists Can Thrive in the Age of AI in-person or online. Get tickets now!

“As the photographic industry was the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies, this universal infatuation bore not only the mark of a blindness, an imbecility, but had also the air of a vengeance. I do not believe, or at least I do not wish to believe, in the absolute success of such a brutish conspiracy, in which, as in all others, one finds both fools and knaves; but I am convinced that the ill-applied developments of photography, like all other purely material developments of progress, have contributed much to the impoverishment of the French artistic genius, which is already so scarce.”

—     Charles Baudelaire, The Salon of 1859

Charles Baudelaire was a poet, essayist, and translator. He is also widely regarded as the “father of modern art criticism.” Yet, when photography started to gain mass adoption among creatives in the mid-1800s, Baudelaire feared it would corrupt that very essence of what it meant to be an artist.  Artists who sought fast results might gravitate toward photography instead of painting, and, in time, the exacting realism of photography could diminish the creative potential of our collective imagery. For Baudelaire, art wasn't merely about mimicking reality; it was about transcending it.

Just as Baudelaire wrestled with the dawn of photography in the 19^th century, artists today find themselves at a transformative juncture with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). AI-powered visual tools such as DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney not only surpass the speed of any photographic device from Baudelaire’s era but also pose a challenge to modern photographic advancements. With a simple text prompt, these tools can produce intricate and varied images that might take even a seasoned painter or 3-D artist hundreds of hours to craft. This reality strikes fear in the hearts of many artists, particularly those dependent on commercial sales to sustain their livelihood. The widespread use of AI-generated images has even prompted mainstream publications like the New York Times to question the credibility of visual media, with headlines such as “Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?”  As this technology evolves, an increasing number of artists and art enthusiasts have voiced concerns that AI’s data-centric creations may strip the very soul from art and undermine the unique value professional artists offer society. Much like creatives 200 years or even 1,000 years ago, today’s artists record and reflect the emotions, values, and essence of their community and the era in which they live. They deeply understand what it means to be human, and their artwork can embody that humanity in ways that a machine simply cannot replicate. For some artists, AI is a hammer, just another instrument in their toolbox; but for other artists, AI is an algorithmic palette — radically unique in the field of existing mediums.

Artistic Changemakers

When photography became accessible to the masses in the mid-1800s, some artists, who depended on portraiture commissions, saw declining revenues. This change in financial fortune, as well as other societal forces, compelled some portraiture artists to shift to other subjects such as landscapes, still life, historical paintings, and genre scenes.  Artists like Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas used photography as a reference to better capture the spirit of their subjects while others disapproved of the use of photography altogether.

Sound familiar? Today we are facing the same polarity of opinions about artificial intelligence (AI) in art. Some creatives, like Seattle-based artist Adelaide Blaire, use AI-generated images as reference and have an interest in exploring AI’s “glitches and oddities.” But there are other artists, like the collective of visual artists, writers, actors, and musicians suing AI companies, who accuse the AI industry of “violating the rights of millions of artists by ingesting huge troves of digital images and then producing derivative works that compete against the originals”’ Not that these two positions can’t be held at the same time — many artists experimenting with AI are also concerned about the copyrights of artists included in the training dataset of these generative AI programs. And this dichotomy will be part of the nuanced conversation that we have at the Digital Da Vincis event on Friday, September 22, 2023.

But there is another point that’s important: The utility of AI isn’t just limited to generative image programs such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney; there are also tools for productivity, inventory management, marketing, search engine results, and more. Even if you never explore AI on your own, this new technology is being integrated into almost every part of our lives — it will impact your artistic journey whether you’re ready for it or not. This is why we’re having this event. We want you to be aware of what is happening now and what can happen in the future. We also want to offer you a space to discuss these changes and brainstorm how we as a collective of creatives can move forward and thrive together. Sign up for the Digital Da Vincis event (online or in-person) now!