“But for most art, there is no client, and in making it you lay bare a truth you perhaps never anticipated: that by your very contact with what you love, you have exposed yourself to the world. How could you not take criticism of that work personally?”
In this generative AI uprising we’re experiencing, it’s become more clear to me than ever what the human element of art is. Human art has soul while generative AI art is soulless. Why is that?
It is my deep belief that whatever an artist puts onto the canvas is a reflection of themselves. Of course our art is not literally a reflection of our physical appearance but one of our passions and interests.
I like art styles with sketchy lines over clean and beautiful lines. It’s both what I gravitate towards but also what I convey when I put brush to paper because it reflects the chaotic nature of my mind. Obviously, the topic of what you’re drawing(or lack thereof) is also a big reflection of your mind. I like drawing stylish streetwear on my characters because I love streetwear myself.
Others like to draw their characters smoking because they have a thing for cigarettes. Some others might like posing their characters very heroically because maybe they like Star Wars movies and their respective movie posters.
This ties it back to what brought up this topic in the first place. A critique on a personal work is essentially a critique on a person. Some people take critique on their work better than they take critique on their personality/interests and some others versa, but a critique on a personal work might feel like a critique on both one’s work and the person’s interests.
Another thing the book mentions I want to talk about is the topic of “acceptance versus approval” in art.
“Acceptance means having your work counted as the real thing; approval means having people like it.”
I personally don’t share anything I work on online publicly because as much as I want to say hearing critique doesn’t affect me, it kinda does. I feel like this section is a part of the artist experience I won’t fully be able to understand quite yet. Maybe some time in the future.