AI-Assisted Artistic Inquiry: Exploring Monet Divergence

PREFACE

An Inquiry Under Constraint

This book records an investigation conducted at the intersection of art and computer-based analysis of digital images. The question of authorship, that is, who painted the works represented by the Study Images, lies outside the scope of this work.

The inquiry is concerned instead with what may be tested when attention is confined strictly to the visible image itself, apart from external records, ownership history, or historical framing. Its purpose is to determine which computational methods can be relied upon to assess specific visual features such as texture, color, and structural pattern under controlled and repeatable conditions.

A work of art exceeds pixels and digital data. For that reason, a clear distinction is maintained throughout between computational analysis and traditional art-historical interpretation. At the same time, the disciplined application of computational methods to visual features may contribute meaningfully to other forms of analysis, provided its limits are clearly defined and carefully observed.

The investigation developed gradually. Early phases were devoted to understanding the capabilities and constraints of the tools employed. Initial assumptions were formed, tested, and frequently revised. Some approaches proved unsuitable and were discarded. Methods were reset, and conditions were tightened. These restarts are preserved as part of the record, as they demonstrate how control was established in practice.

In later stages, emphasis shifted toward stability and repeatability, so that identical methods would yield consistent results under identical conditions. Constraint, in this sense, is not merely a guiding principle but the governing condition of the inquiry.

Artificial intelligence and related computational tools appear throughout as instruments of investigation. Their value depends upon disciplined use. While such tools can produce results quickly, those results carry weight only when they can be reproduced consistently under controlled conditions.

What follows is a record of an investigation conducted within fixed boundaries. It traces a process of repeated testing, revision, and increasing restraint.

From the outset, a stopping condition governed the work. If contradictions emerged under testing, the inquiry would end. Such contradictions would weaken the central question, which asks whether the Study Images align with Claude Monet’s style under the defined conditions of image-based analysis.

The analyses presented here show what detailed inspection of the image alone was able to reveal, where patterns remained stable, and where the inquiry reached its natural conclusion. Beyond that point, interpretation belongs to other methods and other forms of evidence.

These pages record only what was established within the scope set for this inquiry.

The full experimental record, including parameter configurations, repeated trials, and extended outputs, is preserved within the "entries" included at the conclusion of each chapter. The entries follow the chapter structure of this work, with individual entries corresponding to specific phases of the inquiry.

In Search of Monet

An AI-Assisted Inquiry into Artistic Recognition and Visual Structure

One Image..... One Question

Contact

In Search of Monet

An AI-Assisted Inquiry into Artistic Recognition and Visual Structure

One Image..... One Question

Contact

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