This is the second in an occasional series about how specific artworks can lie to us. The first essay in the series, on a poem by Matthew Arnold and a poetic response by Anthony Hecht, can be found here. Took a little longer than I thought, but. I must admit, Midjourney even fooled me a few times before I caught on to what was happening! So now we can fully enter the era of never trusting a photograph on the internet. But so what? Images are lies, as Picasso famously said; and anyone who says differently is selling something.
Can the AI image generators communicate with their drawings of hands? That scowlβthose eyes! Note how it extends beyond the picture plane into our spaceβhow often does that happen in paintings!? It requires immense powers of detachment to observe a finger pointed at you and read it as a set of volumes and lines and not as a finger.
Note how effortlessly he seems to do itβthis was back in the golden age of illustration, when highly talented artists would deploy impressive resources of skill making mere magazine ads, posters, newspaper cartoons, and other such ephemera. Either St. A while back, Vito Franco said he thinks the model must have had Marfan syndrome. Either Parmigianino was trying out some daring new stylistic techniques here, or.
I favor the latter view; are there any Parmigianino fans among my readers who would be willing to contradict me here? Okay what is this. Our little man from Parma might be making mistakes but this.
Um, explain please, Marc? Oh wait, here it is! And I was just about to dismiss those extra fingers as mere silliness. Nothing could be more stereotypical than this genre scene, right?
