AI and Biblical Art

Parable of Mustard Seed - image created by Bing Image Creator

I keep thinking about the AI issue and what that means for me as a Bible teacher. How can I work with students to make good use of AI? How can I use it myself to improve my teaching and presentations. Since anything AI-generated is both totally original and totally derivative (i.e., derived from stuff others have created that’s floating around the internet), I suspect that there will be always be plagiarism and copyright concerns that will need to be sorted out.

Let me draw your attention to one example related to biblical art and the use of DALL-E 2. Stephen Smith is doing all sorts of interesting stuff with the Bible and data analytics and such on his OpenBible.info site. Take a look at what he did when he took verses from Genesis and Luke and ran them through DALL-E 2. He first used ChatGPT using a prompt like this:

Suggest 5 unique concept ideas for a work of visual art inspired by Luke 14:7-11 (do not pick the place of honor) in the Bible. Include art direction and a specific medium and artist to emulate. Include artists from a variety of eras, styles, and media. Try for an unusual perspective. Title, year, medium. Description.

He then ran the prompts through DALL-E 2. HERE are some of the better images he chose from among the 828 that he generated. I think some of them are quite good, and many are superior to some of the stuff I’ve seen that actually shows up in publications. If you scroll down to the bottom, he even calculates the financials. Tldr: “Each GPT-3 completion costs around half a cent, and each text prompt to DALL·E generated an average of 1.3 usable images, bringing the all-in cost per image to around $0.12, or around $99 total for this project.” (BTW, DALL-E requires a free account, but you get 15 free images per month.)

I can imagine using something like this to create images for my presentations. I don’t think it’s too big of a deal for my individual, education-use stuff, but I’m wondering how publishing houses will use this. Along with copyright issues, here’s where the ethical concerns about replacing machines with humans comes into play. Still, I am sure you still need some people to evaluate the images generated and choose suitable ones, adjust the prompts to get more desired results, etc., but cost savings could be tempting.

Another avenue to access DALL-E is through Microsoft Bing Image Creator. (25 images are free, and then you will probably need to use Microsoft Reward Points gained by using Bing search to get more.) It does address responsible use of the images created. (Check here.)

We have put controls in place that aim to limit the generation of harmful or unsafe images. When our system detects that a potentially harmful image could be generated by a prompt, it blocks the prompt and warns the user. We also make it clear that Image Creator's images are generated by AI, and we include a modified Bing icon in the bottom left corner of each image to help indicate that the image was created using Image Creator. We will allow living artists to report their name to us for limiting the creation of images associated with their names.

The image at the top of this post is one that comes from Bing Image Creator requesting an image depicting the parable of the mustard seed with mustard plants and birds. The one below I created directly in DALL-E. They are certainly usable and better than anything I could have created on my own. But do check out the remarkable images on the OpenBible.info blog.

Parable of Mustard Seed - image created by DALL-E

 

New "Art of the Bible" site from OpenBible.info

OpenBible.info has just announced a new "Art of the Bible" site. The project is described here and says:

Art of the Bible is a website I* made to catalog 5,800 freely available historical Christian-themed artworks on Wikipedia. The site primarily focuses on European paintings from the 1400s to the 1800s that, at least in the U.S., should be free from copyright considerations. Arranged into 116 Bible stories, it relies on linked data to populate its database–which means you should be able to use these images for pretty much any purpose.
*I'm presuming the "I" is Stephen Anderson who's been behind most of OpenBible.info's stuff like this.

The homepage graphically organizes major biblical events or persons along with subcategories. Clicking on one of the subcategories will bring you to a visual collection of related art. (Cf. the graphic above.) Clicking on one of the images brings you to Wikimedia where more information and downloadable files can be found.

The advantage of this site as compared to a Google or Bing image search is that these are all from Wikimedia, and that means you can be (completely?) sure that the image is free to use.

Check it out!

Free Art Catalogs and Guides from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently (?) launched a MetPublications site that will be of interest to biblical scholars. Its purpose is described on its About page:

MetPublications is a portal to the Met’s comprehensive publishing program. Beginning with nearly 650 titles published from 1964 to the present, this resource will continue to expand and could eventually offer access to nearly all books, Bulletins, and Journals published by the Metropolitan Museum since the Met's founding in 1870. It will also include online publications.

From a biblical perspective, you might want to search using thematic categories using such ones as:

• Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Greek and Roman Art in the Ancient World
• Byzantine Art

Some of the books are only offered in Google Book Preview, but most are free, downloadable PDFs. Here are some I found that were particularly interesting:

• Art of the Ancient Near East: A Resource for Educators
• Roman Art: A Resource for Educators
• The Vatican: Spirit and Art of Christian Rome
• The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West 
• Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
• Guide to the Collections: Ancient Near Eastern Art
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1, Egypt and the Ancient Near East (preview only)
• Treasures of the Holy Land: Ancient Art from the Israel Museum (preview only)
• Ancient Art in Miniature: Ancient Near Eastern Seals from the Collection of Martin and Sarah Cherkasky 
• Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt: A Photographic Essay (preview only)
• Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century
• The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary: The Story of a Byzantine Book (preview only)

I am not an art specialist, so the first two "Resource for Educators" guides were especially helpful. (How do you know if a depiction is that of an Assyrian deity? The guide will tell you.) Coming from an art museum, there are many graphics, illustrations, photos, and descriptions of many notable pieces from antiquity. Lots of archaeological stuff and much more...

[HT: Stephen's Web]

Biblical Art on the Web - Help?

I received an email message from Rolf Staerk who has done an incredible amount of work locating and organizing Biblical Art on the Web. It's one of the first places I recommend people check when looking for such art. He writes:

I regret to tell you that I have decided to pause my work on the Biblical Art site since, after about 10 years on the Net, I've received an email that puts into question my use of thumbnails.

I have always thought that since displaying thumbnails is ruled fair use of images in court, I am not breaking any law. Now I'm told by a copyright holder that I do. I'm not sure.

I'm seeking advice as to whether or not I may expect legal prosecution from my work, or not. IF YOU KNOW ABOUT A LEGAL EXPERT who may help me as a service in God's Kingdom (I'm not able to pay anyone), please let me know.

I've put approx. 6-8000 hours into this freely, so I feel very sad about the situation. About 1500 people use the service every day.

If I receive help on the above mentioned matter, I may be able to continue as before.

Anyway, the site will probably be up going for months yet, but there will be few updates, if any. I'm sorry.

If anyone knows more about such matters or can provide advice, it would be appreciated. Click on the Contact button on the Biblical Art on the Web home page to let Rolf know.

glo - Multimedia Bible

This one looks interesting... glo is a new multimedia Bible program. Appears to be geared more to a popular than scholarly audience, but it looks to have some interesting features. Lot of emphasis on visual interaction and visualizations.It's hard to tell, and they don't include it with their advertising, which Bible versions are included. (Hmm....? I do see NIV on the video.) Check out the video:

Note that it is Windows only for now with a planned for release on 15 Oct 2009. (Mac version is promised) It will cost $80 (pre-order for $60; also at CBD), but here's the number that caught my attention: 18Gb. That's how much room it takes on your hard drive. Don't have that much free? They recommend deleting unused files, getting a bigger hard drive, or buying an external drive.
It's produced by Immersion Digital whose CEO was (is?) connected with the iLumina line of interactive and media-oriented Bible software. If they send me a copy, I'll review it here, but if you have more info/experience with it, please chip in.

The Doré Gallery of Bible Illustrations: Online and in Bible Software

Image scanned by Felix Just, S.J.

Gustave Doré was the popular 19th century French illustrator known for his 'dramatic' depictions. In 1866, he published an illustrated 2 volume work with over 200 Bible illustrations, but his also illustrated numerous other works (Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost) and had hosts of other indiviual pieces. His fame continues today, since his works are in the public domain, have been widely scanned, and are easily available for free on the Internet. You will probably recognize his images for their distinctive woodcut style.
I have collated some of the best ways to access his Bible-related works, noting both ways to obtain images online, to download, or to integrate with Bible software.
(Links provided to download modules for Accordance, BibleWorks, E-Sword, LaParola, and Logos. You may already have the artwork in Accordance, but these are free downloads for the other programs. The PBB file for Logos is brand new thanks to Don Ring. [UPDATE: LaParola added to list via comment by Richard Wilson.])

HERE is the Gustave Doré page with samples and links

While Doré was not regarded as an 'elite' artist in his own day and most of his images certainly have a 19th century look to them, he does have some interesting depictions worth considering. Here's an illustration of Jesus (not included in the Bible volumes) that is rather well done, imo.

Image from Gustave Dore Art Collections site

Biblical Art, Photos, and Graphics

I just updated my page collecting resources for Art, Pictures, Music, and Video, particularly ones that are Bible- or Christian- related. What you may find particularly helpful is that I've been playing around with Google Custom Search, and I now have created a search engine that I think is the fastest way to find biblical art, photos, and graphics on the web. For a description of the sites it searches, you can go to the Art, Pictures, Music, and Video page and use the search engine from there, or you can test it out here:

Search Art, Photo, Graphics Sites: Bible Related

BTW, creating your own Google Custom Search is really quite simple. If you have a number of personal online sites, you can use this to search them.

Biblical Art... in Google Earth!?

A new layer in Google Earth now lets you visit ultra-high resolution pictures inside museums. As reported on the Google Earth blog, a new layer in their Geographic Web collection provides a view of 14 pictures from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, Spain. As you might expect, a number of them depict biblical scenes. Perhaps the most famous is this Fra Angelico one of the Annunciation. I've provided some idea of the kind of resolution available.

Sites for Art, Pictures, Music, and Video related to the Bible / Christianity

I seem to have been asked enough about online resources for art, music, and videos related to the Bible, especially from a Christian perspective for use in churches. I collected some of the better sites with which I am familiar and have posted them online:

Sites for Art, Pictures, Music, and Video related to the Bible / Christianity

Leave comments if I'm missing some good stuff...

Biblical art on the web

As I've searched for visuals to accompany work on biblical presentations, I've scoured the web for various resources. I posted on this topic before, but the occasion for this expanded posting is that I recently came across a new site (to me) for images to add to the list of links I've roughly compiled on this page.

• As noted there, if I am looking for artwork related to a specific text, I start with Biblical Art on the WWW. I like it because it is a large database, and thumbnails of the images are provided which saves me time. One can search by biblical subject, biblical text, artist, or even a word in the subject or artwork.
  
• The Art Index on Textweek is also very helpful, and though it doesn't list quite as many hits as the first site, it does provide some different ones. The listing are organized and can be found by theme, scripture text, or relationship to the readings of a given lectionary date.
  
• The latest site for art I just found is Art and the Bible. It is not intended to be comprehensive, but it provides a tasteful selection of works that are connected to the full KJV text that is provided. One can browse through the text and see the related art or search by text or artwork title. There are nice overviews of the Last Supper, the Sistine Chapel, and Rembrandt.
  

As always, be sure to use copyrighted works appropriately!

Images and art related to biblical texts

I find that artwork based on a biblical scene often provides students with fresh eyes to see the text. Students are also often hesitant to 'criticize' the biblical text, but they are much more open to 'criticize' and engage with an artistic representation of it. I have, therefore, needed to find sites that provide such artwork. I've created a web page with links to a variety of art, photo, and graphics sites here. I would especially highlight the following:

• Biblical Art on the WWW - Start here first. Great database and has the benefit of thumbnail previews.
• Textweek.com-art - Second place to look: organized by theme, Scripture text, or lectionary date
• For BibleWorks users, the old illustrations by Nadal (16th century) and Doré (19th century) have recently been compiled into an integrated help file resource available at the BibleWorks Blog.