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 1. 
 2. / Live news


GIRL WITH AI EARRINGS SPARKS DUTCH ART CONTROVERSY



Issued on: 10/03/2023 - 11:46Modified: 10/03/2023 - 15:34

Berlin-based designer Julian van Dieken made the image using artificial
intelligence © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP
4 min

The Hague (AFP) – At first glance it seems to be just a modern take on Johannes
Vermeer's masterpiece "Girl with a Pearl Earring". But look more closely and
things get a little strange.

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Read more

Firstly, there are two glowing earrings in the image hanging in the Mauritshuis
museum in the Dutch city of The Hague. And aren't those freckles on her face
actually... a slightly inhuman shade of red?

That's because the work -- one of several fan recreations replacing the 1665
original while it's on loan for a huge Vermeer show at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum
-- was made using artificial intelligence (AI).

Its presence has sparked a fierce debate, with questions over whether it belongs
in the hallowed halls of the Mauritshuis -- and whether it should be classed as
art at all.

The AI-generated image is one of five picked to hang in the Mauritshuis while
the real painting is on loan © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

"It's controversial, so people are for it or against it," Mauritshuis press
officer Boris de Munnick told AFP.

"The people who selected this, they liked it, they knew that it was AI, but we
liked the creation. So we chose it, and we hung it."


'FRANKENSTEINISH'

Berlin-based digital creator Julian van Dieken submitted the image after the
Mauritshuis asked people to send in their versions of the famous painting for an
installation called "My Girl with a Pearl".

Van Dieken said he had used the AI tool Midjourney -- which can generate complex
pictures on the basis of a prompt, using millions of images from the internet --
and Photoshop.

The Mauritshuis then chose it as one of five images out of 3,482 submitted by
fans that would be printed and physically hung in the room where "Girl with a
Pearl Earring" is normally housed.

The image inspired by Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" was created
with artificial intelligence © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

"It's surreal to see it in a museum," van Dieken wrote on Instagram.

The budding artists ranged in age from three to 94, depicting the "Girl" in
diverse styles ranging from a puppet to a dinosaur and a piece of fruit.

But the decision to choose an AI-generated image sparked a backlash.

Dutch artist Iris Compiet said on the Instagram feed for the Mauritshuis
exhibition that it was a "shame and an incredible insult", and dozens of others
piled in.

"It's an insult to the legacy of Vermeer and also to any working artist. Coming
from a museum, it's a real slap in the face," Compiet told AFP.

The Mauritshuis asked fans to come up with their own versions of the "Girl with
a Pearl Earring" © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

She said AI tools breach the copyright of other artists by using their works as
the base for artificially generated images, as well as scraping the data of
internet users in general.

The image itself she described as "almost Frankensteinish".

Artist Eva Toorenent, of the European Guild for Artificial Intelligence
Regulation, criticised what she called the "unethical technology".

"Without the work of human artists, this program could not generate works at
all," she was quoted as saying by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.


'WHAT IS ART?'

"It's such a difficult question -- what is art, and what is not art?" said the
Mauritshuis's de Munnick.

But he insisted that the museum, whose collection boasts three Vermeers and
nearly a dozen Rembrandts, had not deliberately set out to make an artistic
statement on AI.

The AI-designed image has sparked controversy in the Netherlands © Simon
Wohlfahrt / AFP

"Our opinion is, we think it's a nice picture, we think it's a creative
process," he said. "We're not the museum to discuss if AI belongs in an art
museum."

He admitted though that "up close, you see that the freckles are a little
spooky."

Visitors to the Mauritshuis were equally divided, he added.

"Younger people tend to say, it's artificial intelligence, what's new. Elderly
people sometimes say we like the more traditional paintings."

The Mauritshuis was looking forward to the return of the real "Girl" in April,
he added. The painting's fame has increased in recent years due to a 1999 novel
by US author Tracy Chevalier and an ensuing Hollywood film.

The real "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is on loan to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
for a huge Vermeer exhibition © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

"Well, she is beautiful in the (Rijksmuseum) exhibition... But we will be very
happy when she is at home."

© 2023 AFP





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