Examining the Application Value of Graphic Software as a Painting Medium in the Artificial Intelligence Era
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24191/idealogy.v11i2.909Keywords:
Digital painting, Graphics software, Artificial intelligence, Application value, Pure artAbstract
In the realm of digital painting, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has weakened several practical advantages previously associated with graphics software, particularly efficiency, flexible revision, and the production of visually complex images. This raises a focused question: what application value can graphics software still retain as a painting medium in the AI era? Responding to this question, this study proposes a medium-oriented strategy for digital painting grounded in the idea of pure art and supported by observation and semi-structured interviews with three selected artists. The cases of Mario Viele, Southeast-Northwest, and Sébastien Dessauvage show that graphics software remains valuable when it is not treated merely as a tool for accelerating production or reproducing established physical or digital styles. Its distinctive value lies in artists' critical exploration of software-specific imaging conditions, including cross-software manipulation, parameter experimentation, software malfunction, version difference, layering, and obsolete digital environments. The study argues that such practices allow graphics software to function as a medium for extending the expressive boundaries of painting. In the AI era, this value is twofold: it sustains non-standard digital painting languages that are difficult for data-driven models to reproduce smoothly, and it provides new visual material through which AI image-generation systems may later be trained and diversified.
Keywords: Digital painting, Graphics software, Artificial intelligence, Application value, Pure art.
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