“In a Church that exclusively equates orthodoxy with meticulously formulated verbal expressions of dogma in response to heresy, the pious person has been left essentially to his own devices to figure out how to actually worship God. We might have orthodox teaching, but if no one is taught a matching orthopraxy, what good is it?”
This is such a beautiful summation of the problem of the Church right now. Thank you!
Well said. That image is horrible. Yesterday I posted some medieval art and, while I don't express it nearly as well as you, there is a world of difference between that, created out of the faith and piety of real people, and the monstrosity of AI art. Unfortunately today's church is all about generating feelings rather than growing the faith of its members and this is where we end up.
Really thoughtful post-- thank you for bringing this up for public discourse. Another problem with AI-generated images is that they are partially driven and certainly informed by popular prompts, which means that the resultant images, especially of women, tend to be quite sexualized.
It seems very clear that the images used to "train" MidJourney have been of the "conceptual art" kind. That is, the comic-books, superhero movies, fantasy and sci fi video games variety, and the female images really reflect those genres very clearly. It just seems to reproduce images according to the the tastes, knowledge and habits of the nerdy computer people who created it. I bought a month's subscription a while back and fooled around with it when they were developing it and though it improved somewhat while I used it, it really was obviously not ever going to produce art-like images based on anything but the most broadly known popular works and genres - standard "celebrity" artists and periods. It knew a bit of Renaissance, it did OK with Caravaggio and some other "name brand" painters of that period. It sort of knew who Cezanne was and kind of knew a bit about impressionism. It's the same rule for computer programmes that it's always been, "Garbage in; garbage out." If the knowledge of the people programming it isn't' there, the AI won't know either.
What is disturbing about this is how often a priest or devout person posts an image like the one above of Varda, and gets a chorus of gushing, weepy praise for it, every one of whom will defend to the death the position, "It's sacred art because its pretty and it gives me the feelz." These are not insincere or impious people. It confirms for me every time that we have reached a nadir among Christians of formation of the Christian visual intellect. The very concept of there being a Christian visual intellect to be formed seems to be totally unknown to them. I seem to have picked yet another steep hill to climb.
For sure to all of this. My husband is an abstract painter & art professor. He's made very similar observations to what you astutely list here. He's spent many hours playing around with AI, and has had to edit & re-edit multiple times to get MidJourney to leave out random female body parts from "abstract" images. AI just really really likes breasts, go figure! We've been slip-sliding away with, as you say, Christian visual intellect, for quite a while now, and AI seems to be nailing that coffin. Concept art, the primacy of feelings...that's where we are now.
Perhaps this is too simple, but it seems to me that images like that are "too pretty." There are some
paintings, I know, that are beautiful, like Bouguereau's. But they are definitely created by a man devoted to his Lord. And, of course, not by a device. But this Varda-like image is....well, still, too pretty. And Byzantine-Italo as well as Memling et al. are anything but pretty. How else can one describe it?
Could be. But having the temerity to love or better yet, venerate JRRT, what's one man's female beauty (adolescent or otherwise) might be construed by us non-adolescent (even now) females who despise "pretty." I tend to think that the Great Man himself might have thought the rather cool beauty of Brunhilde might please him
Wonderful post Hilary; I've really enjoyed reading your work over the past few weeks. I'm a new convert to the Orthodox Church, but even I noticed...the 'icon' of "Varda" is missing a very important element: CHRIST! I've yet to see a true icon of the Theotokos in which she isn't either bringing Christ to us, or pointing us toward Him...
Wow, that image turned me off as soon as I saw it: cold, dark, no evocation of humility. Next thought: AI. Nasty stuff.
“In a Church that exclusively equates orthodoxy with meticulously formulated verbal expressions of dogma in response to heresy, the pious person has been left essentially to his own devices to figure out how to actually worship God. We might have orthodox teaching, but if no one is taught a matching orthopraxy, what good is it?”
This is such a beautiful summation of the problem of the Church right now. Thank you!
Well said. That image is horrible. Yesterday I posted some medieval art and, while I don't express it nearly as well as you, there is a world of difference between that, created out of the faith and piety of real people, and the monstrosity of AI art. Unfortunately today's church is all about generating feelings rather than growing the faith of its members and this is where we end up.
Really thoughtful post-- thank you for bringing this up for public discourse. Another problem with AI-generated images is that they are partially driven and certainly informed by popular prompts, which means that the resultant images, especially of women, tend to be quite sexualized.
It seems very clear that the images used to "train" MidJourney have been of the "conceptual art" kind. That is, the comic-books, superhero movies, fantasy and sci fi video games variety, and the female images really reflect those genres very clearly. It just seems to reproduce images according to the the tastes, knowledge and habits of the nerdy computer people who created it. I bought a month's subscription a while back and fooled around with it when they were developing it and though it improved somewhat while I used it, it really was obviously not ever going to produce art-like images based on anything but the most broadly known popular works and genres - standard "celebrity" artists and periods. It knew a bit of Renaissance, it did OK with Caravaggio and some other "name brand" painters of that period. It sort of knew who Cezanne was and kind of knew a bit about impressionism. It's the same rule for computer programmes that it's always been, "Garbage in; garbage out." If the knowledge of the people programming it isn't' there, the AI won't know either.
What is disturbing about this is how often a priest or devout person posts an image like the one above of Varda, and gets a chorus of gushing, weepy praise for it, every one of whom will defend to the death the position, "It's sacred art because its pretty and it gives me the feelz." These are not insincere or impious people. It confirms for me every time that we have reached a nadir among Christians of formation of the Christian visual intellect. The very concept of there being a Christian visual intellect to be formed seems to be totally unknown to them. I seem to have picked yet another steep hill to climb.
For sure to all of this. My husband is an abstract painter & art professor. He's made very similar observations to what you astutely list here. He's spent many hours playing around with AI, and has had to edit & re-edit multiple times to get MidJourney to leave out random female body parts from "abstract" images. AI just really really likes breasts, go figure! We've been slip-sliding away with, as you say, Christian visual intellect, for quite a while now, and AI seems to be nailing that coffin. Concept art, the primacy of feelings...that's where we are now.
Perhaps this is too simple, but it seems to me that images like that are "too pretty." There are some
paintings, I know, that are beautiful, like Bouguereau's. But they are definitely created by a man devoted to his Lord. And, of course, not by a device. But this Varda-like image is....well, still, too pretty. And Byzantine-Italo as well as Memling et al. are anything but pretty. How else can one describe it?
It's derived from comic books and video games, so it's based on an adolescent male's notions of female beauty.
Could be. But having the temerity to love or better yet, venerate JRRT, what's one man's female beauty (adolescent or otherwise) might be construed by us non-adolescent (even now) females who despise "pretty." I tend to think that the Great Man himself might have thought the rather cool beauty of Brunhilde might please him
more. Possible?
Wonderful post Hilary; I've really enjoyed reading your work over the past few weeks. I'm a new convert to the Orthodox Church, but even I noticed...the 'icon' of "Varda" is missing a very important element: CHRIST! I've yet to see a true icon of the Theotokos in which she isn't either bringing Christ to us, or pointing us toward Him...