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Joseph Nathan Cohen

Sociologist at Queens College in the City University of New York

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Romanticism

How generative AI renders Romanticism: thin and thick prompts compared across two subjects.

AI Art Styles

This entry documents how a generative image model rendered Romanticism when the movement was named in a prompt. It forms part of a survey of 60 art movements generated in February 2024.

The images

Two subjects are held constant across the series: Lake Kenogamissi in Northern Ontario, and Times Square in New York City. Each is rendered twice. A thin prompt names the movement and nothing else. A thick prompt supplies a generated description of the movement’s visual characteristics.

Lake Kenogamissi
Romanticism, Lake Kenogamissi, thin prompt
Thin prompt
Romanticism, Lake Kenogamissi, thick prompt
Thick prompt
Times Square
Romanticism, Times Square, thin prompt
Thin prompt
Romanticism, Times Square, thick prompt
Thick prompt

The thick descriptor

The following description was generated by GPT-4 and supplied to the image model as the thick prompt.

Romanticism in art is characterized by an emphasis on emotion, individualism, and nature, often featuring dramatic landscapes or historical scenes filled with emotion. The style showcases intense colors and contrasts. To capture the Romantic style, create imageries that evoke intense emotions such as awe, sympathy, or terror. Depict the sublime beauty of nature, make bold use of color and lighting to create dramatic contrasts, and express a keen sense of individualism or a glorified past.

About this movement

Background on Romanticism is available at its Wikipedia entry. The images above are not offered as an account of Romanticism as art historians understand it. They record what a commercial image model produced when asked for the style by name.

About this series

This entry is part of a survey, described in the series introduction. The full set of 60 movements is browsable in the Art Styles index. The survey used text-to-image generation, in which composition varies alongside the style itself.

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Associate Professor of Sociology at Queens College, CUNY. Writes about household finance, culture, and the tools social scientists use to measure economic life.