Computers can be made to do complex tasks, as long as we are able to break up the complex task into simple, direct, logical instructions. For machines that solve problems in medicine, astrophysics or geology, it was just a matter of time before somebody broke up the process of fine art into the constituent activities of composition, colouring, blending, accentuating and so on, and got the machine to create art.
The materials employed, the brush strokes applied, the process of building layer upon layer of paints, all are unique to a given artist. For the Masters of the art, these processes have been studied in detail. Also, there is a large enough body of work by each such artist to lend itself to research, and to draw conclusions about strokes and resultant patterns.
The inevitable has happened. A computer, after an input of a suitable algorithm, took about an hour to create this self portrait of Van Gogh.
(http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2015/09/03/computer-algorithm-recreates-van-gogh-painting-in-one-hour/)
Computers are not composing original pieces of art work yet. The research by Gatys, Ecker and Bethge (2015) into instructional algorithms for a computer, distinguishes between the content and composition of a given art work, and the style of execution. The computer was able to finish a given composition in the style of the artist specified.
(http://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.06576v1.pdf)
All artists have their favourite themes, and Van Gogh painted several compositions with cypresses.
They were painted at different times of the day, with different hues in the skies, and with different "focal points". There are two women in the first painting shown here, and two men in the second painting.
While the authors, Gatys
et al, have chosen a few well loved and recognised paintings for their research, and development of their algorithm, it will be interesting to see how the computer deals with such paintings on the same theme and by the same artist.
Quotes are used from various philosophers, poets and playwrights, musicians and scientists, as per the artist's fancy. Here is one for example, from Nietzsche.
