Veduta Ideate

Digital images created with generative AI and edited in Lightroom, 2022.

Veduta Ideate represents the 18th century extension of Capriccio genre. These are realistically drawn but completely imaginary scenes. Piranesi was the most well-known artist in this genre (1720-1770). His renowned etching series Carceri d'invenzione, or "Imaginary Prisons," draws on his early training as a theater set designer and purposefully employs impossible geometry.

To create imaginary scenes in this series, I have added multiple images to each prompt including an arial photo of a frozen abandoned city in Siberia, a photo of apartment blocks also somewhere in Siberia likely built in the 1960s, and 1563 oil on wood painting of Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The prompts also contained these phrases: “snow covered terrain with random train tracks and poles with electric wires, aerial photo looking down, December 8am cold lighting, light fog, f13 lens, aerial photo looking down” or “snow covered empty terrain with electricity poles with decaying Tower of Babel, December 11:00 8am cold lighting, light fog, f23 lens, aerial photo looking down.