What is art?

What is art? 

Is art created when a sculptor shapes clay to carve a statue? Or art is when an artist with a brush and oils paints a canvas, right? I like to think I can create art with my camera. Even a tattoo artist is creating skin-art.

What about words? If I could create an image using only words, would I now be an artist? 

That is not a throw-away question. Right now, I can create illustrations, pastel watercolors, and oil paintings, just using descriptive words on my computer, plus the right app.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention this part. The engine for this type of art is AI or artificial intelligence for the uninitiated.

Using spoken or typed words, and a keyboard or microphone, speaking to Microsoft's Copilot AI app, I can create an image just from the words that I used to describe that image. The more nouns, adjectives, and adverbs I use the better. If you don't believe me, check out my "Little Red riding Hood" illustration below.

Adobe, the folks that created Photoshop, have an even stronger visual learning (AI) app.

As an example, look at the illustration below of the man in the black hat. I typed the following words into Adobe's AI instruction box: "Create a photo-realistic illustration, using surrealism, of an elderly man with a flowing white beard and long white hair, dressed in black with a black hat, drinking from a tin cup." I kept going and going with visual descriptors. The image you see below is what I got back.

So, my original question stands; "What is art?" Is the illustration of the old man "art," and am I the artist? If I were a commercial illustrator, should I be compensated for creating art with my words?

The illustration of the man in black is very much what I had in my mind's eye when I spoke it into an illustration. My unique combination of words created the drawing. It is an original. But, I seriously doubt I could duplicate the same illustration again even if I tried and used the same words repeatedly. 

That's one of the things I found about AI. When it comes to art, it is not very predictable, and not very repeatable. 

But back to my original question though, what is art?

What about the next illustration? I spoke that painting from the following words: "Create a watercolor illustration of a woman walking in a field of bluebonnets, together with longhorn steers. The woman is wearing a white dress with a large white hat. The time of day is sunset, and the woman is walking into the sun, toward a red barn."

I did not say any of this was "good" art, just art.

How about my little red riding hood illustration below. I superimposed the text I used.

AI got it right, down to the big bad wolf and her feet splashing in the water. I am curious about her face though. Does that look like a cat-face, or is it just me? Maybe AI carried Miss Hood's facial features a little too far.

This all has huge business implications. Imagine it's 2025 and you are an illustrator working for a Madison Avenue ad agency. The client walks in for a creative meeting carrying comps she produced in her own office. But these don't look like regular comps; they are finished art. And the scary part, these comps perfectly describe the visual idea your client has in her head. No more reading the client's mind; her mind is a perfect visual likeness on her laptop.

Why does she need you? I would be shaking in my boots. There is no doubt that the visual arts industry will be (or already is) being redefined to the core by AI.

I have to say, playing around with AI is visually fun. I even submitted a photograph to Microsoft's AI app and asked it to create a watercolor painting from a photo. Below are the results. The picture is my father taken in 1948. This is interesting art, but is it truly art? As a pro photographer, how do I feel about Adobe AI creating a watercolor painting from my photograph, without my permission, and also taking the credit for it?

I personally find all this fascinating; art being created from words. I can see ethical issues though.

Take the man dressed in black. I don't understand where all these images originate, but I must wonder, is there an old man out there in the "digital dust" somewhere who looks like this fellow? Look at his ears and eyes; check out the details on his hat.

Did Adobe get a model release first to use this fellow's image? Or is there even a person out there at all? Could this image be a composite of hundreds, even thousands of images all pieced together by AI; a nose here and an ear there?

This is a deep topic. I do not understand how AI works to create art from words. But as I said in my opening sentence, it does beg the question: What is art, anyway?