Art and Eye

  In this complex, lively, exciting pulpit panel the eye looks up towards the monumentality of the Virgin, who commands this scene. She is massive and powerful, the largest figure with thick swathes of drapery delineating her forcefully protruding knees out into the viewer's space. Seated but still retaining dominance, she defines the classicising style of Nicola Pisano, witnessed throughout the panels of his pulpit in Pisa. Many writers have described the style - Eloise Angiola for instance, refers to the 'sophisticated understanding of classical prototypes to create heroic human forms' in Nicola's pulpit. Certainly in Pisa the prominent debris from the classical past remained visible and Nicola easily had access to various ancient sarcophagi for direct emulation here. The Virgin's features with her serene expression and curled hair beneath the mantle are in fact quite androgenous. She quickly assumes the position of a monumental Roman Emperor or Senator commanding

  In a world where AI-generated art is 'burgeoning' according to Gareth Harris, the eye will increasingly witness these immersive, evolving, self-generating images that now percolate museums. Refik Anadol at MoMA in 2022-3 was no exception, a huge installation that was full of movement and change. Transforming the meta-data of the gallery of over two-hundred years of art, and creating a digital work inspired by his findings, Anadol's installation was designed to envelop the viewer walking into and through it as if consumed by it, or in the words of MoMA, a display that was truly 'visionary'.  Anadol is just one artist collaborating with the machine to produce this generative art that could be our future. The fact that this was a popular exhibition at MoMA perhaps belies a growing institutional awareness and acceptance of these new methods. Certainly it seems to be the case elsewhere - the first 'original' work constructed through AI to come to auction was at