Catholic AI Art

A response to Hilary White

Notice my title does not have “sacred art” in the title. Because Hilary’s recent article is entirely assuming that us making Catholic AI art are trying to make “sacred art.” We are not. Her argument fails on a faulty assumption.

I don’t know, Hilary. Why are you assuming it’s sacred art? I don’t see anyone else doing so.

We are making art, or images if “art” is too strong a word for you. I make no pretense about the images I make here. I give MidJourney a photo of a saint, and then a sentence prompt, and select from the four images given or have it retry if the fingers are too weird. The images serve two purposes: First, they are primarily for my own entertainment. I do not like most Catholic art, because they are not contemporary and thus do not speak to my time and place.

The other purpose of my images are as eye-catchers to make people curious and interested in the articles. This is the great boon of AI art. The non-artistic no longer need to fail to those who can hire artists to make their work look good. I can now create images that match what I have in my head to attract people to my work.

None of this is to have people pray to the images I make. They can if they want, though. How do I know? Common sense, and also the fact that my FSSP priests have blessed them. In other words, they are images fit for devotion. But that is an option. Not their sole purpose.

Hilary complicates the uncomplicated. Any image of a saint can be used as a devotional aid. Because we don’t worship images, right? They only serve as visual aids for prayer. Otherwise, this guy would be solely lacking in sacred art because his official portrait isn’t a flat, geometric representation of him:

Oops. Too bad Han Holbein works in the realist style rather than Eastern Orthodox iconography. Sorry, St. Thomas More! Gotta wait a few centuries for an Etsy artist to make an icon of you! We can’t pray to you until then!

“How are we supposed to know this is Thomas More?! Where’s his icon symbols? Why isn’t his name scribbled in Greek off to the side?!”

And, look, Hilary does have a point about “How are we supposed to know who this is?” But, that’s the problem in every work of art. It’s especially a problem when depicting saints we don’t have photos of. I like to try to depict the Virgin Mary in contemporary clothing. But, this is difficult to do because she then becomes difficult to recognize as Mary. Once you get Mary out of her ancient semitic robes, and out of Ancient Israel, she’s largely unrecognizable. When casting her in contemporary wear outside Catholic imagery, You run into the problem of Mary looking like a modern Muslim woman (contemporary clothing with a head scarf). So, how to tell people an image is of Mary?

Hilary’s leaping off point is a great example. MidJourney has given me similar images of “Mary” before, and I too, joked she looks like a Tolkien elf.

So, let’s think of what makes Mary recognizable. How do we know statues and images of the Marian Apparitians are Mary? Notice none of the Marian apparitians are ever depicted as Eastern Icons, yet are all suitable for devotional use and even display in parishes. They are sacred art.

How do we know this sacred art is Mary? Largely from context, obviously. But, what if we never heard of Fatima? She is wearing long robes with a hood. Mary is always veiled in some fashion. She is holding a rosary, that’s another aid. She has a halo. Most apparition images have Mary surrounded by a bright light. Those are the tells that we are looking at Mary, or at least a holy figure. Hilary’s lead image fails on some of these, and has others. Mary’s hair is exposed through a thin veil. She does have a bright light, but it lacks in Catholic imagery and context to let us know this is Mary.

Hilary is also wrong about how MidJourney works. MidJourney is not pulling from Marvel and SciFi and other popular nerdom. MidJourney can make images in any style. I can make images as if they were Kodak picture ads, Michelangelo painted it, any art expressive style in history, or even specific artists such as Akira Toriyama or H.R. Giger (I might have to go to confession for making MidJourney generate images of Marian H.R. Giger art…) I can also make Eastern Orthodox icongraphy:

Hate of AI art comes from a few things, but namely of envy. Artists don’t like that a person can type a sentence and get perfect art. But, this is misplaced. AI art still has many limitations, many which are infuriating. The random images keep the user from specificity and fine-tuning of an image, the infamous fingers, and the inability to create small objects such as rosaries and glyphs. Others are the engine’s inability or refusal to create violent imagery which I would like for depicting dramatic moments of saints’ lives.

Another hate some people have of AI art Hilary points out:

Uh-oh! We can’t have that! “Only adolescent males like young, thin women! Older, more mature men like middle-aged, fatter women. These men are more mentally mature, and masculine. Liking thin, younger women in their reproductive prime is for mentally immature teenagers.” I am going to refrain from brutalizing Hilary, here. You all know what I can say, here. I will just make the point that some older women do not like how MidJourney continually produces images of beautiful women. I guess we can’t have beautiful women.

A criticism of Michelangelo’s Pieta (Is that “sacred art”? Alot of Catholic’s pray toward it) was that Mary appeared youthful and beautiful. Michelangelo defended this by saying it was deliberate because he believed “chastity preserves.” The Marian dogmas are that Mary’s body was preserved before, during, and after pregnancy. I agree with Michelangelo that Mary’s youthful beauty was likely preserved through this (and she was assumed into Heaven shortly after Jesus). My reasoning for this I will save for another article. What I am getting at is that I am tired of the Mommy Mary Catholic art. I want beautiful Mary. How many times do we hear seers talk about how stunning Mary is, and then we depict her middle aged with fatty cheeks? So, I want to make my own Marian images where she actually does look beautiful.

Artists should never forget when we use MidJourney, it is to get an image. But artists give us personal expressions. Even though I can type out a sentence and get a picture of St. Gemma, I still pay artists I know to make their own art of her for me. Because it’s from them. Only Timothy Renner can give me his art of St. Gemma. And even if MidJourney could create Timothy Renner art, I still commission him for his own, real art of Gemma. Because it’s from him. AI is not a person.