During their time, the impressionists were creating new interpretations of reality, employing novel techniques, and ridiculed by the establishment. However, looking backward, they are the defining movement of modern art, gracing textbook covers and museum banners.

The radicals have been adopted.

Today, as someone who explores creative AI, I focus much of my work on impressionist and post-impressionist style paintings, reimagining these now definitionally "establishment" techniques to create new views of reality, using new technology, and doing so in the domain considered somewhere between trite novelty and heretical: artificial intelligence.

It's within this frame that I often explore new AI models to see what they are capable of. What brushstrokes can I call from within their machine learning? What colors can I evoke?

Using a particularly scorned model (SDXL Beta), I found that perhaps it was misunderstood. When I adjusted the settings to give myself less control, I encountered beautiful, haunting impressions. Abstract images. Figures that blended back and forth into the brushstrokes.

I soon was drawn to a recurring character, a red-headed man whose hair was so vibrant that it came to bear on even the most chaotic, low-control settings.

I found myself literally chasing this vision through the latent space. Generating countless images, all wisps and impressions from this "broken" model. Only once I had completed the set did I realize whose distorted reflection had been whispering to me through the tortured brushstrokes of the machine.