Heres what it would look like if Picasso had painted the presidential portraits
Five days ago, I pitched an idea to Karl Stiefvater, who like me was wowed by a new algorithm that was mimicking the styles of the greatest artists. What if he applied Picasso’s style to the portraits of the U.S. presidents? Would it involve an unbearable amount of work?
The answer was no, despite the St. Louis resident’s total lack of training with a paint brush.
“These pictures I’m making are coming out of a complete novice’s hands,” he told me last night. “I’ve learned more about Picasso in the the last week than I’ve learned in the last 20 years.”
What Stiefvater does have going for him is the algorithm, and training as a computer programmer. He described it to me as “black magic,” and doesn’t even fully understand how it works. He downloaded it from Github, where a computer programmer he’s never met posted it.
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Stiefvater modeled the portraits after the periods Picasso went through. Our first presidents get a style from Picasso’s early years, while the modern presidents resemble his final works.
Stiefvater stressed that he doesn’t see the portraits as creative, but views his works as a reminder of how computers will match more and more of our human abilities.
“As the machines step in and take over more of our jobs, we’re distilling down what artistic creativity is,” Stiefvater said. “It’s not the physical precision of the curves, there’s something intangible, something complex about it. At the end, it’ll be the last thing machines can’t do.”
Stiefvater was nice enough to let me republish his work here. Which image is your favorite?
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