State of the “Fine” art in the age of artificial intelligence

Excerpt

I went to a gallery the other day to enjoy some paintings. The gallery was packed with people, partly because word had spread that a painting by a famous foreign impressionist painter was on display. It took me an hour to make my way through the crowd and finally reach the portrait by Renoir that I had come to see. Despite the fact that it is a world famous painting and I had seen photographs of it many times in books and on the Internet, I was struck and very moved by the beauty of the actual painting. Several days later, I was browsing through an art catalog and found detailed information about the painting I had seen. It included information like the family background of the woman in the painting, when it was painted, the techniques used to paint it, and even a list of the collectors who had owned it over the years. Knowing all this information might help us more deeply understand the painting, but I personally felt like my passion had been slightly dampened. Academic descriptions aimed at elucidating the beauty of a work of art and the sensibility to embrace beauty do not necessarily go together. …