What is the formula for creating a masterpiece, according to an AI. An artificial intelligence has devised the formula for artistic inspiration.
“Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can hide in anyone.” These are the illuminating words of the austere food critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille, the 2007 Pixar animated film. It is a quote that attempts to unravel the mystery behind artistic inspiration and some unanswered questions: why are some of us endowed with a creative temperament and others not? How does inspiration come about? And finally, what is the expressive drive that leads to the creation of a masterpiece?
These are questions without a definitive answer. Unless you want to entrust such an answer to an algorithm: computers, in fact, have the tendency to make everything more prosaic and pigeonholed, dismantling both the fascination and the mystery behind the great unanswered questions about the human condition. Fortunately, these answers are often too “cold” to be truly convincing.
So what is the formula for a masterpiece, according to computers?
What is the formula for creating a masterpiece, according to an AI
Some researchers have tried to answer with a publication in the scientific journal Nature Communications. According to the conclusions of the artificial intelligence behind the study, the golden period, in which an artist has a better chance of achieving the masterpiece of a lifetime, comes after a few years of exploration of styles and techniques, followed by years in which the artist puts a particular technique into practice and focuses intensely on a narrow area of his or her artistic pursuit.
Dashun Wang, who coordinated the study, said that “neither exploration nor exploitation alone, in isolation, give birth to the moment of success, but it is their sequence together. Exploration followed by exploitation seems to be the right combination to initiate the lucky period.”
What method did the researchers follow, a boundless database
The database the researchers had computer analyzed looked at the careers of artists, filmmakers and scientists, broken down into 800,000 images from 2,128 artists, 79,000 films from 4,337 filmmakers and the work of 20,040 researchers. A remarkable amount of material, which could not have been examined without the help of a machine.
This is not the first time that scientists put their hands in the lives of geniuses: here, for example, is how 14 descendants of Leonardo Da Vinci were identified. Still on the subject of the opportunities that the digital era makes available, not only for research, but also for artistic fruition, here’s how to see the Louvre Museum’s works of art online.
Giuseppe Giordano