Hmm. So the point of looking "painterly" is that it looks like the art was done manually by a craftsman. But once any computer can do it, that stops working. Then you'll need to do something else.
I guess this also applies to the diffusion models. They look just as if a human did it! But as that gets more common, there will be added value in doing whatever they can't do, because only that will look truly human.
> So the point of looking "painterly" is that it looks like the art was done manually by a craftsman.
I don't know that there has to be a point to it in that sense.
In general, the goal isn't to generate static images that can be passed off as paintings.
It's a real-time 3D rendering technique, for one thing -- you can't paint this.
The term painterly refers to non-photorealistic computer graphics art styles that mimic some aspects of painterly paintings.
The point of doing this is to (try to) make a thing (a 3D scene, generally) look the way you want it to.
> So the point of looking "painterly" is that it looks like the art was done manually by a craftsman
I think the core issue is the difference between the digital and the analog as mediums. My understanding is that the computor is not a medium in the real sense. Rather (for the most part) it is a meta-medium: a medium that impersonates other mediums. It impersonates the photographers darkroom, a typewriter, a movie editing station etc.
TFA describes a more effective way to impersonate. It is no more a replacement of a painting than a photograph of my wife is a replacement of my wife.
> But as that gets more common, there will be added value in doing whatever they can't do, because only that will look truly human.
Here I would agree. Standing in front of a real painting is an entirely different experience to looking at a digital emulation of a painting on a screen. My new problem as an art teacher is that I find myself talking to students who claim to have seen the work of (for example) Michelangelo, yet I know they have never visited Italy.
I guess this also applies to the diffusion models. They look just as if a human did it! But as that gets more common, there will be added value in doing whatever they can't do, because only that will look truly human.