How can traditional art stage a comeback in the digital wave?

The rise of AI has brought both challenges and opportunities to traditional art. While AI painting can imitate techniques, it fails to reveal the true core value of art which is the irreplaceable human creativity. Just as photography gave rise to the impressionist revolution, AI is now driving art creation back to essential thinking. 

The competitiveness of traditional art lies in its unique emotional depth and creative logic. AI generates content based on human instructions, although it is rich in color and vivid, it fails to highlight the artist’s dominant position. Take ink wash painting as an example, the unique texture produced by the collision of Xuan paper and ink is an immediate externalization of the creator’s state of mind and emotions, full of insights into life, and behind it is a profound humanistic accumulation. Such an artistic core is beyond the reach of AI. Art is not just visual presentation, but also a concrete expression of the spirit of an era. 

Technological innovation is reshaping the art ecosystem, achieving a wonderful balance between upholding tradition and innovation. Designers use Midjourney to unleash their creativity, the Dunhuang murals are rejuvenated through digital restoration, and XR technology brings cultural relics to life in virtual spaces. This proves that technology not only does not dissolve traditional values, but also builds a dual value system of “digital twins + original physical works”. In my opinion, the future of art will be a symbiotic relationship between humans and machines, with AI handling basic design, digital technology assisting in the transformation of commercial art, and top-notch creations becoming even more precious due to technological impact. Algorithm-generated landscapes lack the “learning from nature” source of inspiration, and mechanical arms replicating “Sunflowers” cannot convey Van Gogh’s spirit. History shows that technological revolutions are opportunities for artistic transformation. After the digital wave, cultural creations that carry the light of humanity will be eternal. 

When AI is over-exploited by humans to increase computing power and serves various fields in a master-servant relationship, artist Shao Fan, in his unique way, has formed the first human (intelligent labour) – machine (artificial intelligence) dialogue in the contemporary art field. His series of portraits of AI, in his works, AI is concretized from a human parallel perspective. The image of AI is no longer cold and mechanical, but rather a blend of humor and metaphor. He seems to be on the same wavelength as AI when he is painting, precisely capturing its subtle emotions. Moreover, one of his AI portraits before the launch of Deepseek even depicted the similar organ shapes of AI and humans, exploring the commonalities in the core of Chinese calligraphy – the heart and nature. Through his brushstrokes, he shows the deep connection across the boundaries between humans and machines. In the current wave of mathematics, Shao Fan affectionately writes cells for AI, kindly endowing it with human warmth.