> How to you estimate the 'time and skill' that went into the creation of a random piece of art?

You don't. Unless that's the kind of thing you're into, I guess.

> Is a portrait that took 50 hours to paint inherently more worthy than a virtually identical one that took 5 hours? Is the slower artist the better artist? Is a Bob Ross 'happy little trees, body of water, mountain in background'-image not artistically valuable because he does it in 20 minutes?

You can't quantify art that way. People work at different speeds. I can appreciate that something took some number of hours without knowing the precise number of hours.

> As for skill: I would argue that a random Banksy takes a lot less skill than the average Artemisia Gentileschi (admit it: you had to look her up). Yet, one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-Italian painters'.

Maybe, but I'm not qualified to make that comparison. Both are beyond my level of artistic ability (I've never studied art nor practiced much). I don't know why one thing or artist gets more popular than another while another who's just as talented (or maybe even moreso) languishes in obscurity. Skill is a factor, sure, but there's no formula that I'm aware of.

> What sort of people honestly look at a picture and ask 'yes, but how long did it take to make? How long had the artist to be trained for this?'

Maybe some people think of it that way. I don't know. I've never asked those questions about any art I consume. I just think something like, "wow, this looks nice, it must have taken a while" or "what would it take to make something like this, I wonder"

> Maybe some people think of it that way. I don't know. I've never asked those questions about any art I consume. I just think something like, "wow, this looks nice, it must have taken a while" or "what would it take to make something like this, I wonder"

I think this raises an interesting question about form vs. function in art.

I was running a AD&D game on Friday. At one point, I was holding up the book to show the artwork of a monster to the group. None of us were looking at it and taking the time to contemplate the effort involved, thinking it must have taken a while, etc. I'm sure some people do - old school D&D art is definitely an area that a subset of the hobby is passionate about - but the majority of people are looking at it to help with formulating things in their mind's eye, getting a feel for things, etc.

But I will appreciate a piece of "standalone" art in a very similar manner as to how you describe.

Do most readers spend appreciable time looking at the art on the cover of their book? Do people spend a ton of time looking at album art while listening to music on Spotify? How about the art in a video game - how much of it is the point vs. something that facilitates the point - the last few times I loaded up Dwarf Fortress, it was the ASCII tileset, not the graphical version.

Do AI creations have a place where the art is supposed to be functional vs. being made for the sake of being art?