/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>6294362
okay where do i start?

op is another moronic permabeg retard that won't post his work because he's another nodraw dumbfuck.
Legit kill yourself, cancer.

>>6294364
the greeks
>>6294370
see, this is the kind of ignorance and demoralization I'm talking about

>>6294362
Always fascinated by western vs eastern art movements. And no I don't mean anime or anything modern, I mean the way the far east historically valued simplification and symbolic idealism and organics, while at the same time the west historically valued detail and romanticized realism and geometry. It's interesting culturally like it's influence on language scripts and architecture, not just art. I also think it's vital to know if you want to grasp why asian art has a certain flow that western art struggles to mimic.
I never realized just how much influence my western cultural upbringing had on my interpretation of visuals until I really dug into visual history and philosophy around the world. It gets even more interesting breaking it down between individual countries and seeing why they made art the way they did. Sad to see everything becoming so homogenized over time, the internet is really doing a number on art that no one will notice until everything looks exactly the same and we'll be too far gone to go back. A computerized future is a very bleak one.

>>6294433
It's kind of why I adore manga or adventure storytelling from the east too. They symbolically represent things as opposed to looking at cold hard objectivity, so they have liberal interpretations on what suffices to satisfy a definition of something. It's probably why even their hardest magic system, Nen, still has a few wish washy characteristics and is wielded by characters that thoroughly repudiated reason in their feats even before factoring in Nen on top of that

>>6294452
You can compare the ancient literature of these regions and see the same thing. Compare Homer's Odyssey and Beowulf to the Legend of the Monkey King or the Japanese folklore. They all involve fantastic creatures, but the west has an overall pragmatic approach to the fantastic while the east has a mystical approach. Hell even our interpretations of the mythical dragon are wildly different. From slaying the dangerous and imposing beast of the west to exalting the benevolent and magical deity of the east.
It's like we westerners condition ourselves to value and admire logic and practical application, weighing the direct cost of things and picking the simplest means to an end. For example we valued architecture that expressed the visual results of math and formulas.
While the east, especially the far east, condition themselves to think in aesthetics and rationality, weighing the cost of the effects of their choices and picking the means that result in their personal ideal end, even if those means take longer or cost more. Their valued architecture is full of swoops and curves, circles and layers, more organic.
Now take all that and apply it to art, same deal. Asia would generally rather take the roundabout way, valuing the symbolism and the experience over how accurate or realistic something is, preferring natural chaos. The west loves its pragmatic representation, making things accurate and formulaic to take the easiest or most reliable path to achieve the goal, preferring strict visual order.
Kind of funny how there's less social order from the west despite having more orderly art, while there's more social order in the east while having less orderly art. Maybe it's the way the two cultures existentially cope with the things they lack or something.

>>6294516
No, that's correct. Jp society is incredibly repressive.

It's interesting because I've been hard at work for a WN/manhua/manga series that derives itself heavily from eastern works, shounen, isekai etc but it has the level of fidelity and detail you'd expect from something more clinical. It's strange as I raised myself entirely on weab stuff but maybe the simple act of living in the west alone is enough to make me want to attempt abridging litrpg/anime absurdity with something very clinical.

I do adore the Greek gods though and the way that their own decisions mete out their own undoing, I think we lost something going from pantheistic religions to Abrahamic monotheism.

>>6294516
No, that's correct. Jp society is incredibly repressive.

It's interesting because I've been hard at work for a WN/manhua/manga series that derives itself heavily from eastern works, shounen, isekai etc but it's attempting the level of fidelity and detail you'd expect from something more clinical. It's strange as I raised myself entirely on weab stuff but maybe the simple act of living in the west alone is enough to make me want to try my hand at abridging litrpg/anime absurdity with something you could more realistically believe in. I do adore the Greek gods though and the way that their own decisions would oft mete out their own undoing, I think we lost something or at least transitioned going from pantheistic religions to Abrahamic monotheism.

That is to say our style changed.

goddamn won't let me delete the first of those, but yeah. it is really fascinating. Have you heard of the aesthetic concept of wabisabi in japan? The idea that incompleteness and flux are desirable qualities and that perfection is unattainable, or at least not worth striving for. They purposefully leave or take gold out of their castle architecture and construction. It's part of why manga tends to comprise of many rough and unfinished drawings and they just lavish the bare minimum prerequisite detail they can be bothered with

I've studied art history and it's pretty nice stuff to know.
But I don't have any idea what you mean by "study aesthetics", care to give me a quick rundown of what that would entail?

Whenever I read a philosophy book I think "ok... that makes sense, but did it warrant a book?", so I'm convinced these things are meant for NPCs who can't get out of the cave by themselves and confront their own doubts/fears.

t. "invented" Pascal's wager by myself at 11 on the day I decided I didn't believe in God, as a way to test whether I really wanted to give up on the promise of a paradise, only to convince myself it was fine a few days later by "inventing" the same argument as attributed to Epicurus on the problem of evil.

>>6294520
>the simple act of living in the west alone
It's this. Even Asians who move here, if they moved here fairly young, will still wind up having more stiff and formulaic art compared to their counterparts in native asia. Just writing in Roman lettering is, by itself, an exercise in western aesthetic. It's as orderly as our architecture and art. By being here you are surrounded my an inescapable subtextual culture and value system that you process subconsciously every day. If you were raised in the west you can never fully escape it, though many have managed to fight against it very well and make fairly convincing asian style work. Of all the westerners, it's actually the Slavic people, especially Russians, who can bridge that gap the easiest because of their close geographical proximity to the east and constant ancient conflict with the Mongolians. I'd say Arabs could have been much more asian too if their religion hadn't completely destroyed their ability to depict the organic. They leaned into geometry and created a sort of organic-geometry hybrid which is its own thing entirely.
>I think we lost something going from pantheistic religions to Abrahamic monotheism
I think we actually gained quite a lot from abrahamic faith, because it introduced a metaphysical spiritualism that was sorely lacking in classical Greece and Rome. I'd say Greece and Rome are actually the fathers of clinical artistic practicality. When Christianity took over it added a level of ethereal thinking, fantastical beings that had no definitive form, a new world of imagination was born. The barbarians Rome despised were far more organic and spiritual, and polytheistic, probably closer to what Asia would have been. The Romans invading them culturally, sterilized that. But if Christianity hadn't been introduced to Rome, we'd be even more clinical than we are now.

>>6294544
For reference I spent literally a year and a half worldbuilding all of the cultures, the overall end game of the MC's journey and the magic system upfront because I didn't want to repeat some of Oda's mistakes being that it is a dyed in the wool adventure series
Consequently I think I have a better power system than Nen in some ways, though that might just be me
It's at least comforting to know my tartlet insanity is somewhat rooted in my socialization and not just sheer autism on my part. Bit of both, I think.

I really like 'Better Call Saul,' it shows the west can do performative goofiness and root it in as much realistic precedent as any writer could muster.

>>6294531
Yes I'm a big fan of wabisabi, particularly because I've always been fond of the natural world. For me, a piece lacking the natural chaos of the human hand is a piece lacking in intrigue.
>>6294553
The thing to remember is that for the Japanese, it's more important to look good and have appeal than to really make sense. Though there's a minimum of being comprehensible, of course. And appeal for them is very subject to trends. But if your audience isn't Japanese, it's a different ballgame. It's very complicated to use one cultures visual values and a different cultures social values. I wish you the best of luck in finding a middle ground between them that works best for you.

>>6294570
I'm purposefully eschewing the recognition of a specific audience because I think it's going to limit my storytelling capacity. Concerns over cancellation are in the toiler too because I'm publishing on an alt with few quandaries to squander for what it can do for me. I'm just going to tell a story that's of my own influences and not necessarily those of my culture, though those are impossible to separate entirely

I always loved the idea of chaos and coolness as I imagine you and many manga fans also do but I cannot get over the idea that it's somewhat rooted in practical logic and want to reintroduce that logic to these ideas without losing any of what makes them interesting, even if that might create bloat or otherwise burden the work down unnecessarily. It's an undertaking of my own hubris and I think I'm having a blast, whether the result is even good or not, so that in itself is a win.

I just hope AI fucks off so I don't have to struggle to prove I wrote and drew all of it

>>6294433
>A computerized future is a very bleak one.
A blessing and a curse, but mostly a curse...

>>6294516
While there's a general tendency, there has, at least in the West, different movement, with preferences ranging from very richly decorated (French stuff), to extremely cold and brutal, like soviets & nazis (but those are exception on most aspects).

>>6294520
>I think we lost something going from pantheistic religions to Abrahamic monotheism.
The Renaissance was about finding back antique cultural roots that had been discarded/lost in the Middle-age, following the fall of Rome.

>>6294531
>The idea that incompleteness and flux are desirable qualities and that perfection is unattainable, or at least not worth striving for
Like how we admire Renaissance sketches or lose painters? ;-)

>>6294541
Established philosophers can serve as guide, help you progress faster or more efficiently, give you a tested methodology (Socrates/Plato). There's a balance to be found between growing from them, while having room to experiment on your own. It can also help develop your confidence, for instance when you find lines of thought that have been historically acknowledged

>>6294544
>because it introduced a metaphysical spiritualism that was sorely lacking in classical Greece and Rome
I remember I was a bit shocked when I learnt about the context of the death of Socrates, and his mindset. If you haven't, I recommend you to take the time to study this. Essentially, a precursor to the Christ, choosing out of his own will to sacrifice in the name of a superior Deity.

That's to say, there were some seeds already

>>6294541
bruh you sound like a retard fr fr

>>6294364
Prehistoric art like Lascaux paintings or venus of willendorf. After that Ancient civilizations. Try Khan academy which covers a very beginner-friendly and basic timeline of art history and it is a free website.

>>6294579
In hindsight on our deathbeds we'll all wish we had just done what we wanted. So more power to you anon, especially since you chase those dreams through the arts which is perhaps the single most vital human freedom. If it's any help, there are loads of Japanese who have a predisposition to think logically and clinically, just like there are loads of westerners who have a natural affinity for asian ideals. The Hollywood movies of the 70's and 80's had an enormous impact on Japan, manga and anime. Follow your heart, no matter where you come from the most important thing to all cultures is to be sincere, flexible, and have depth of understanding.
>>6294580
>in the West, different movement, with preferences ranging from very richly decorated (French stuff), to extremely cold and brutal, like soviets & nazis
Of course, every country has its own regional culture, I mainly was taking about the west as a single entity but that obviously is reducing things a lot. The west as I say it, isn't even really the west, I'm technically excluding the entirety of the americas and their indigenous cultures. It'd be more accurate for me to say like, the Greco-Roman sphere, or something.
>Renaissance sketches or lose painters?
Nta, but not entirely. Wabisabi is actually a focus on literal nature. Like a common example the Japanese give is the way that leaves scatter on the ground from a tree. It would have to be more like if renaissance sketches were done all in a single stroke in ink, or if a painter used paint splatter to decide where the locations of everything should be.

>>6294618
Since you seem intelligent, how long do you expect it'll be until AI can generalize our experience and shit out fully formed games/serializations apropos of no human input at all? I'm hoping 50 years but I'm scared it's going to be more like 5.

>>6294618
>Wabisabi is actually a focus on literal nature
OK I see, like arranging a few points in a aesthetically pleasing way

>>6294622
Not him but essentially, never. 1) AI will only be as good as what it feeds upon 2) Some people are resourceful an will find ways to counter-balance AI 3) Trad. Even if AI can do trad, there will still be value in original art 4) Computers can break. Electronic storage system are much less sturdy that a cave's wall

People who have to worry aboutAI, right now, are people who are doing cheap, mass-consumed stuff (think, coom, cheap comics/animation/manga)

>>6294630
Man I don't consider any manga or animation to be cheap though. I think almost every manga out there that isn't total trash has something emphatic or interesting to like about it. I absolutely don't want it automated.

>>6294630
I think people forget that "x is gonna replace y" has been going on for centuries. People (i.e. media outlets) used to say that:
>Records are gonna replace music concerts
If anything more than ever people love to assist music festivals and live orchestras.
>Photography is going to replace painting/portraits
Painting was still done in the 20th century (albeit took a sidestep due the dadist and conceptual meme), handmade portraits are still a luxury and still being made.
>Films are going to replace theater
Theater is still alive and most actors/actress prefer it to work in a show/movie.
The last two ended up becoming their own artistic medium, some of the so called replacements not mentioned ended up becoming tools instead.

>>6294654
>I think almost every manga out there that isn't total trash has something emphatic or interesting to like about it. I absolutely don't want it automated.
You cannot automate having had human experience, which is the main driver of genuine, heartfelt artworks.

>>6294622
I've tried to write a proper answer a few times now, but there's just too much nuance in the issue. I have a character limit, and I've had to debate this topic with stubborn morons and shills at least 30 times now. Look, as simply as I can put it: we are NOT getting replaced by AI until we achieve general AI. The holy grail of AI that the majority of experts believe is not even achievable. We are missing the secret sauce. The X factor behind what makes something sapient. There are also factors involving the global economy, the expectation that this era of hyper capitalism is for some reason immortal, and the physical limitations of the materials involved in computing and it being simply mathematically impossible to input all the world's conceptual, contextual, spiritual, and linguistic nuance into something that isn't a general AI, and to have it understand all those things in tandem. This AI stuff is the least of my concerns.
>>6294630
>like arranging a few points in a aesthetically pleasing way
More like barely arranging at all. Allowing things to occur just as they happen to occur by chance. Within reason I guess, pure chaos is no way to live one's life.

>>6294362
Stop being so contained. Go OUTSIDE of art. Enrich yourselves with our world and its history, even outside of our world. Creativity is at its most interesting when it isn't contained.

>>6294695
Art history is related to world history and culture. A lot of art is political in nature or reflective of its time or culture.

>>6294687
thank you so much fren

I'll post some shit furry art I did years ago as a gesture of my appreciation. Mind you I don't really do that much anymore and my story isn't furfag shit but hey.

You took a load off of my mind. Here's to another millennia of hand drawn wabisabi, anon!

>>6294708
Cheers friend, best of luck with your story. Stay the course and keep your wits about you, a broad field of view of the entire world will keep you grounded. A narrow view will only leave you vulnerable to distractions like these shill campaigns. Do your best, ganbatte.

>>6294687
>More like barely arranging at all. Allowing things to occur just as they happen to occur by chance. Within reason I guess, pure chaos is no way to live one's life.
I meant, this kind of exercice is often asked precisely because human tend to like order & symmetry

>>6294654
It's not what I said/meant: I meant, among all of animation/manga, the stuff that is cheap and made for mass-consumption is at risk of being displaced by IA. The subset of it which is the least interesting/developed/requires the least effort to make

>>6294666
Those arguments are right, but you're missing a few lines to the story.

CDs did replaced vinyl, USB and cheap internet replaced CDs. But digital created a renewed interest for vinyl (not sure how relevant). Same story for movies with Internet-consumed content.

Photography is a cheap way to provide portraiture to anyone. It didn't replaced traditional portraiture, but it did affect the "market" of portraiture.

And there have been more drastic replacement if we go outside of the ones you've chosen: washing machines, pre-cooked plates, electrically retouched/amplified music, white people (ok that's still a WIP, kek), etc.

>>6294580
I'm >>6294541.
You didn't answer my question, what sort of topics or lines of thoughts am I supposed to learn in the field of "aesthetics"?

As an example, here's the kind of explanation I'd like about learning "composition":
- In composition the main concern is showing an idea in a visually interesting manner, by thinking not about the subject matter per se, but about the overall shapes, values and colors, creating the right dynamics/flow for the artwork and how to make the viewer notice the things that matter the most.

So, what does one learn by "studying aesthetics"?

>>6294824
Nigga we are talking about art, CDs being replaced by digital formats is completely different from records replacing symphonic performances. None of the other shit you posted has to do with my post.

>>6294362
How in-depth should I go?

Another last thing, what about great songs and music like you see in FF7 Remake and some other games? Not just avant garde or classical stuff. Will AI fuck production of those up too or does the same adage apply that truly groundbreaking changes to even pop paradigms will be impossible to mimic?

>>6294579
>I just hope AI fucks off so I don't have to struggle to prove I wrote and drew all of it

Yeah I'm someone who plans to make anon identities too to publish and the reaction against AI (validity) would go against those plans. Out of curiosity do any of you read Heidegger? Or at least seen this documentary?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-rmGy9gWvE
The full version is on youtube.

Also, as an aside about AI and aesthetics I've said before the AI art has a tortured look to it. Like nature is being tortured. It's possibly pareidolia on my part (interpreting something metaphysical into a mindless process) but the look is there.

>>6295055
I'm not worried anymore. The other anon has made me care less about it. He's right, we're fine. But I should actually really do something about it or activize anyway, because even attempted murder is a crime, no? We should fucking hate this on principle

>>6295055
The reason you see torture is most likely because AI creates a final image by arranging nonsense with no true order of operation that a normal brain would use to make art. The logic we register from the end result is not human perception logic, it's mathematical and disjointed. As if every step taken was disconnected from every other step, because it technically was. The machine doesn't actually understand what it's making or why. The only humans that can do something comparable are deeply disturbed schizophrenics, whose minds are constantly disconnecting all the time. There could be a case made also for those suffering severe dementia. These people are clearly sick and in constant mental anguish. Imagine, to understand in some capacity that you are unwell and your mind won't think right, but to not be able to to anything about it with no place to run or escape to, even in your own head. To have no comfort anywhere, no reprieve, just eternal fear and confusion. Yeah, that's torture, and to some capacity we can interpret that torture just by looking at those sick people's art. That's what AI art often creates. The equivalent of a humans completely disconnected slurring irrational thoughts, forced to focus on drawing a depiction of something.
Pic related is a piece by Richard Dadd, a man so deeply deranged he killed his family convinced that they were demons, and that he was under the influence of the god Osiris. I find it the same kind of incomprehensible yet comprehensible kind of uncanny that AI art often is.

>>6295181
not them, but i liked this post. great thoughts. i’ve studied the painting, and see ai art everywhere, but knew nothing about the gears that turned behind either. appreciated your cool connection.

>>6294970
If you want to debate, please be more thorough, I don't want to spend time with "I am so right you're dumb" kind of people

>>6294954
I guess aesthetics could be assimilated to stylisation, which is an element of composition. Generally speaking, each culture has its own "vibe", its own sense of aesthetic. Think, the Western (Greek) vs. Eastern dichotomy.

Now artists in the past were highly educated people, so their way of working was altered by their education, mainly spiritual/religious/philosophical views. We can think of those views as the deep aspect of aesthetic.

So yeah, I'd start with that.

You can also use rules of composition (have a look at Arthur Dow's book) to help you decipher more superficial aspects of aesthetic and more generally, learning to draw and paint (think, uses of colors, lack or simplified perspective, etc.)

>>6295381
>If you want to debate,
I don't talk with people who have poor reading comprehension, so don't worry.

>>6294362
art history is all useless information that in no way will help you make it as an artist.

ignore retarded political shit, and just use your eyes. ignore the art school dunning kruger retards telling you that this shit is important. it really isn't, and the time invested in this shit will not pay off in any way that 2 minutes scrolling down a random board on pinterest won't get you.

>>6295059
We should hate it because it's unethical to remove humans from work that is rewarding for humans. Even animals in zoos need enrichment, zookeepers make animals work for their food because otherwise they go crazy. AI was pushed as a way to cut out "the boring stuff" from our lives, so we can get on with living more naturally. But making art is not "the boring stuff," it's enrichment. AI is now doing the opposite of what it advertised all this time.

>>6295974
As I said earlier in my post, the ability to pursue and create art with all of it's difficulties IS a quality of life privilege they're removing. Yah.

>>6294708
Also this sounds like dunning kruger but the more I stare at my old painting the more I really like the style of it. I should learn to draw humans or my entire concept in this style desu

bump

>>6294364
Art History by Travis Lee Clark
>https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD0yYUsx9vpuhu2dkk8_a9w

>>6295055
>Also, as an aside about AI and aesthetics I've said before the AI art has a tortured look to it. Like nature is being tortured. It's possibly pareidolia on my part (interpreting something metaphysical into a mindless process) but the look is there.
AI art is painfully sterile. Either you let it be vague enough to keep its dreamlike quality or you try and push for detail and realize that the AI is incapable of creating anything that is both detailed and expressive.

>>6298473
Thanks anon