AVATAR 2022 September Edition

Artists’ Autumn Art

By: Alex Karapondo

Autumn Landscape with Four Trees

It may sound like I’m describing the artwork with the heading, but that is the name of one of many famous works by artist Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh may be artistically creative, but clearly, he wasn't very good with words. Instead, he communicated through his art. He was able to incorporate deeper meaning into his art using color study. One way he did this was by carefully selecting the leaf colors. The trees in the autumn artwork are a representation of the seasonal change, with yellow and orange representing the harvesting season. The hues are blended into each other helping to represent the progression of leaf stages in the fall. In addition to this, the mellow tones suggest the adaptation man will have to make from one season to another. By using representing fall in his artwork, he is also connecting it to his viewers' personal lives with deeper perspectives.

Autumn on the Seine at Argenteuil

Claude Monet’s famous autumn paintings are considered to be some of his greatest works. His paintings portray nature’s change of seasons through a more relaxed color scheme and technique. This autumn artwork is one of Monet’s most famous works because it shows a shift in environment. Not only the shift of season, but of the artist itself. Usually, in this time period, the 1800s, artists painted from their studios looking out into the world for inspiration. Thus is one of the first works where the artist is outside, in front of their specimen, creating the work. Who knew a shift in season could lead to the simple but revolutionary idea of becoming one with your art?

Takeaways: Art can be simplistic in what it contains, but can always house deeper meaning and significance to art history. Seasonal changes show social values and shifts in the way art is made. Seasonal changes influence the mediums and methods of creation as well. Seasonal changes are not only beautifully represented in art, but show revolutionary bounds in art history.

Is A.I. art really art?

By Ethan Truesdale

The concept of Artificial Intelligence generating art pieces has been quite controversial in the art community as of late. Many people, specifically artists, hate the idea that A.I. art is being made and has entered into contests. One recent example, in the Colorado State Fair, one entrant, named Jason Allen, submitted an art work generated by A.I.,(pictured to the right) winning first prize. Many artists were enraged by the idea that he could enter an A.I art piece to a contest, but Jason Allen refused to apologize, stating that, “I won, and I didn’t break any rules.”

The way that A.I. generated artworks are made through an A.I. that observes other artworks and uses these as a framework to create new pieces. This A.I. is not made to simply replicate, but to learn from what it sees, to develop technique. In this way, A.I. Art isn’t really made much different from human made art, people observe the world around them, and other art they've seen, and they utilize these in order to generate new pieces. Though I don’t believe that A.I. should be able to “compete” in contests with human artists, and that art contests should make changes to their ruling to accommodate that, I do believe that is art.

Artists are trying to claim that A.I. Art is the end of art and is marking the downfall of any creative medium, but I believe the opposite. I believe that the creation of A.I. is one of the best possible things to happen in the art community. Now, instead of people simply being able to take what they see around them and replicate it, Artists will now be forced to create new original ideas in order to move away from the capabilities of A.I. art. A.I. art can replicate ideas that it sees, but it can’t develop anew. It has no emotion, no creativity. Now that A.I. art exists, Any artist will be forced to create new ideas that have never existed. A.I. can only manipulate what they’ve seen in the past, only people can create original ideas for the future.

Do you believe A.I. created art is really art?

The following pictures are of examples of A.I. generated artwork, which I used the website craiyon.com to generate

Avatar's Blast from the Past

by Dex Hooker

The first publication of Avatar was in 1975. This section pays tribute to the past editions.

For this edition of the blast from the past I chose the 1987 Avatar. Art choice (right) by C. Chang- I really like the realism in the drawing. The attention to detail is mesmerizing. I also just really like cats. Poem choice (below) by Anita Klausing- I enjoy the contrast between the success and the failure in every line. The ending is telling yet it leaves you wondering.

Reality

My dreams of success

May sometimes fail

My joys of peace

Shall leave no trail

My friendships wither

And fade away

But a friendship with love

Shall forever stay