Oh boy: the AI-isms on this article are so annoying.
The nonsensical headings and CTAs are so frustrating to read.
"Watch it work once". What what work once?
How to Read a Painting
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: How to Read a Painting
#12Museum labels are supposed to be designed to deliver the take-away point that the curator wants to make. Asking museum goers to learn how to read paintings is a poor workaround. The classic guide to writing interpretive exhibit labels is Beverly Serrell's book [1]. TFA has very little content and a terrible LLM stench. I work in this field, so I was attracted to the clickbait title. My advice is not to read TFA, just…
Museum labels are supposed to be designed to deliver the take-away point that the curator wants to make. Asking museum goers to learn how to read paintings is a poor workaround.
We don't only encounter art in a museum. I think there's some value for most people to understand that you can develop some kind of framework for evaluating art.
Hopefully, people don't take the questions in the article as prescriptive (or the only way), but just as an example until they better understand their own tastes.
Re: How to Read a Painting
#13This would be an interesting project if it was written intentionally by a human. As it is, the generated prose telling you how to appreciate art is ghoulish.
Seems like a skill issue by the author, though; LLMs can approximate whatever writing style with enough effort.
Re: How to Read a Painting
#14I've been playing around with a similar problem 'Can AI help me increase my literacy around Art & Design' but have taken a bit of a different approach, essentially:
1. Have a rough rubric around areas of knowledge and where I'm strong/weak
2. Every day an agent builds a ~30min task + short answer question and slacks it to me. Tasks are designed to have minimal AI writing and pull primary sources / courseware. Easy to do in downtime or during my commute.
3. Answers are picked up from Slack, are scored against the rubric, and progress is tracked day over day which influences the task for the next day.
Stack is dead simple, scheduled Claude Cowork task + state in Obsidian + Slack for messaging. Happy to share more details if people are interested but easy to replicate from the above.
One of the things it's opened my eyes up to is the sheer volume of high quality works/analysis/videos/courseware available online. You really don't need AI to process this, but it's helpful to have a wrapper that identifies/points you to the resources that will be the most helpful for you.
Re: How to Read a Painting
#15Museum labels are supposed to be designed to deliver the take-away point that the curator wants to make. Asking museum goers to learn how to read paintings is a poor workaround. The classic guide to writing interpretive exhibit labels is Beverly Serrell's book [1]. TFA has very little content and a terrible LLM stench. I work in this field, so I was attracted to the clickbait title. My advice is not to read TFA, just…
Museum labels are supposed to be designed to deliver the take-away point that the curator wants to make. Asking museum goers to learn how to read paintings is a poor workaround. We don't only encounter art in a museum. I think there's some value for most people to understand that you can develop some kind of framework for evaluating art. Hopefully, people don't take the questions in the article as prescriptive (or th…
> I think there's some value for most people to understand that you can develop some kind of framework for evaluating art.
Or just understanding that art is very rarely exactly what it seems.
The problem with this LLM-driven thing is that the person who did it seems to have as shallow an understanding of art as the LLM, or has chosen a level of terseness that belittles even the LLM's grasp of famous paintings.
I am a bit cynical about all of this but I do find that occasionally an LLM has told me something about my own creative work (photography) that is unexpected. I don't know that I understand how one can point an LLM at paintings this famous and get such minimal insight from it, given how much must be in the training set.
Re: How to Read a Painting
#16I like it- I don't care if it's all AI-generated, it's an interesting way to explore famous paintings. So I read through one, and at the end I got a popup asking me to drop my email and that "the next 4 ones are free too".
The gall!
Re: How to Read a Painting
#17Oh boy: the AI-isms on this article are so annoying.
The nonsensical headings and CTAs are so frustrating to read. "Watch it work once". What what work once?
I find it pretty funny, because to me it sounds like the same weird English you hear/read in tourist traps in non-English countries
Re: How to Read a Painting
#18Museum labels are supposed to be designed to deliver the take-away point that the curator wants to make. Asking museum goers to learn how to read paintings is a poor workaround. The classic guide to writing interpretive exhibit labels is Beverly Serrell's book [1]. TFA has very little content and a terrible LLM stench. I work in this field, so I was attracted to the clickbait title. My advice is not to read TFA, just…
Museum labels are supposed to be designed to deliver the take-away point that the curator wants to make. Asking museum goers to learn how to read paintings is a poor workaround. We don't only encounter art in a museum. I think there's some value for most people to understand that you can develop some kind of framework for evaluating art. Hopefully, people don't take the questions in the article as prescriptive (or th…
> we don't only encounter art in a museum
True, but the TFA's first line reads:
Most of us walk through museums reading the little labels and nodding.
To your point, yes, one can learn to appreciate art, but the TFA is far from useful for this purpose, too.
Re: How to Read a Painting
#19For me, asking “what else can I see?” has been useful. Some of my favorite works of art show me new things every time I look. Garry Winogrand’s 1964 is my favorite book of all time, I’ve gone through it dozens of times and always find a new photo to appreciate.
I also find it helpful to avoid labeling art as “bad” and instead say “I do not yet understand this work, but someday I might”. I didn’t get that Winogrand book at first, had I written it off I would have missed out. I still don’t get Cy Twombly, but I hope to figure his paintings out someday.
The more art you look at, the better you get at looking at art!
Re: How to Read a Painting
#20Oh, this might be my opportunity to tell HN about one of my nerdy recent hobbies, one that would terrify professionals! In fact one that professionals say is impossible for non professionals (which might be what attracted me to it).
I restore paintings as a hobby! It is not easy to get into. Watch Julian Baumgartner on YouTube. He carefully never tells you what glue, resin or solvent he is using. The appreciation this has given me for the paintings is phenomenal. I have been mostly restricted to removing varnish to date. AMA. I have lived the opportunities for research it has given me. I work on scrap paintings from charity shops or fb marketplace, if that scares you less.