Notes on Impressionism an AI (part 1)
When cameras killed painting, and what that teaches us about ai
Before 1800, if you wanted to capture a moment, you called a painter. That was their job. Capture reality.
Then came the camera (1816 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce). Suddenly, “capturing a moment” got automated, done in a flash, at a fraction of the energy.
The painter’s core value - gone. Society, being what it is (efficient, ruthless), stopped rewarding that role. If a photo could be achieved at a fraction of the energy, why hire a painter?
So painters had to reinvent themselves. Find a new edge.
This is how Impressionism started. A few “dark side” painters looked around and thought:
“Well, we’re kinda screwed. Now what? What’s our edge? What can we do BETTER than the camera?”
Their answer:
“Okay, so realism is dead. Cameras win.
BUT!
We do have some more tricks up our sleeve. We have imagination, empathy, and perspective (taste).
So if a photo shows rain, we’ll show cold.
A photo copies life, we’ll paint what we see, what we feel, what we imagine.
Monet said it: “I want to paint the air.”
They stepped outside, open-air painting, to chase light and mood. Just sun on water, people in cafés, fog in the morning, painted fast, messy, honest.
They broke all the rules.
They found an edge.
Water Lilies
Impressionism wasn’t about perfection. It was about perspective, taste, and the feeling of now.
Boulevard Montmartre, Paris at Night
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Impressionist painters were largely rejected by the official salons of their time, especially the prestigious Salon de Paris (of-fucking-course.), which was state-sponsored and defined the artistic establishment in 19th-century France.
So they created their own shows. Independent exhibitions.
The name of the style derives from the title of a Claude Monet work. Deep down, I hope that’s the reason Anthropic named Claude, tho I kinda think it’s because of Claude Shannon (information theory).
AI Era. Impressionism for everything.
Cool, so the camera didn’t kill art. Just one specific role that we now no longer consider art. The value system changed. That was the 1800s. Now, AI is here, and i have a deja vu.
It’s almost the same, except……… It’s for almost every thing humans do. We basically need to create “impressionism”, just not for painting, for pretty much everything.
We need to double down on what Claude Monet did back in the 1800s.
Double down on taste, on imagination, on perspective.
As Rick Rubin said
Interviewer: So, what are you being paid for?
Rick: The confidence I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel - that has proven helpful for artists.
That said, maybe our edge is something else. Is it biological information that we have and machines don’t? Maybe it’s about flesh and blood? Stupidity? Our ability to be board? Our issues? We need to start unbundling these ideas to get to the core of it.
Or maybe let go of trying to find an edge, and just listen and see what emerges.
An easy prediction is that in a few years, the hourly rate for graphic designers will drop, while the prices charged by brand agencies will rise.
Why? Because tools are getting cheaper, but taste is getting more valuable.
It’s like buying a haircut machine versus visiting a hairdresser. The price difference doesn’t just reflect utility. it reflects how much society values style, intuition, and human judgment.
I think non-conventional people will rise. new patterns. wierd ones. anomalies.
I’m very excited.
&
More thoughts in my next blog post.