Petition of the Artmakers

This article is not about AI.

A Petition

From the Practitioners of Illustration, Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Collage, and Graphic Design, and from the Producers of Inks, Paints, Pencils, Brushes, and Generally of Everything Connected with Visual Artistry.

To the Honorable Members of the House of Representatives.

Gentlemen:

You are on the right track. You reject abstract philosophies and show little regard for aesthetical enjoyment as merely an end in itself, divorced from the labor that produced it. You are rightly concerned above all with the fate of the human artist. You wish to free him from soulless competition, that is, to reserve the domain of art for works made by human hands and imbued with the human spirit.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity to apply your — what shall we call it? Your philosophy? No, nothing is more misleading than philosophy. Your aesthetic? Your framework? Your conviction? But you reject aesthetics, you distrust frameworks, and as for convictions, you insist that there are none in art criticism; therefore, we shall call it your taste — your taste without philosophy and without conviction.

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival which, by some twist of fate, operates under conditions so far superior to ours for the creation of graphic output that it is flooding the realm of artistic expression with it at an incredibly low cost and impossibly high volume. The moment it appears, our works lose demand, and every viewer turns to it instead. A whole enterprise of the human experience, with its countless nuances and industries, is suddenly brought to a standstill. This rival, which is none other than nature itself, is waging war on us so relentlessly that we suspect it is being manipulated against us by the forces of artificial intelligence (a dreadful conspiracy these days!), particularly since it seems to hold such disdain for our human-made creations.

We ask you to be so kind as to pass a law requiring the closure of all outdoor landscapes, parks, gardens, forests, beaches, mountains, lakes, rivers, and anything else through which the so-called beauty of nature is wont to manifest, to the detriment of the noble art forms with which, we are proud to say, we have enriched this society — a society that cannot, without betraying its highest cultural values, abandon us today to such unfair competition.

Be good enough, honorable representatives, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.

First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to nature, and thereby create a need for human-made art, what cultural and moral benefit in the United States will not ultimately be encouraged?

If America embraces more art, it will foster greater appreciation for human creativity, and as a result, we shall see a renaissance in cultural expression, with more opportunities for storytelling, symbolism, and emotional depth — elements that nature, for all its magnificence, cannot provide.

Our urban centers will be filled with art galleries and public installations. Countless artists will emerge to express the values and struggles of our time through their works. Thus, there is no area of cultural life that would not be enriched by the flourishing of human-made art.

The same holds true for our moral progress. Thousands of artists will create works that challenge our perceptions, elevate our empathy, and provoke necessary debates. In no time, we shall have a thriving cultural movement capable of upholding the intellectual and ethical ideals of America and satisfying the patriotic ambitions of the undersigned petitioners, artists, etc.

There is no aspiring artist in the quiet corners of his studio, no struggling sculptor working through the night, who will not see greater recognition and moral fulfillment in his pursuit of artistic greatness.

It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one American, from the celebrated painter in Harlem to the humblest vendor of paintbrushes, whose life would not be enriched by the success of our petition.

We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not borrowed from the tired arguments of hedonism. We defy you to utter a word against us that will not immediately reflect poorly on yourselves and the very ideals you claim to uphold.

Will you tell us that, though we may gain from this protection, America will not benefit at all, because the viewer will bear the cost?

We have our answer ready:

You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the viewer. You have cast aside those interests time and again when they conflicted with the dignity of the creator. You have done so in the name of preserving craft, tradition, and the sacred labor of the human hand. For the same reason, you must do so once more.

Indeed, you yourselves have anticipated this reply. When told that the audience delights in a thing made cheaply and without toil, “Yes,” you answer, “but the artist has a stake in its rejection.” Very well. If spectators have a stake in the enjoyment of natural beauty born without human effort, creators have a stake in its suppression.

You have told us that works born of circuits and code must be rejected, for no human spirit strained to bring them forth. Then, we ask, by what standard do you accept the splendor of a forest after rain? The symmetry of a snowflake? The elegance of a bird’s flight? No toil carved these things, and yet you grant them reverence.

So let us be clear. If you forbid art that is soulless, that is slop, then forbid the trees. Ban the breeze. Censor the clouds. Either beauty needs labor, or it does not. Make your choice, but be consistent.

For as long as you scorn visions born of an algorithm, in proportion as their making demands no toil nor tale, how inconsistent it would be to admit the beauty of nature, whose creation costs nothing at all!

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The above revision of Frédéric Bastiat’s “Petition of the Candlemakers” was made primarily by ChatGPT, as was the artwork throughout the article.

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