An Exploration of the Characteristics of Abstract Painting and AI-Generated Abstract Painting in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Freudian Perspective

Abstract

Currently, with the widespread application of artificial intelligence technology in the field of artistic creation, AI generated abstract paintings have gradually become a research hotspot. However, there is still a gap in the systematic comparative research on the psychological level between AI and traditional abstract paintings, especially in depth exploration within the framework of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Through textual analysis, case comparison, and theoretical interpretation, this study systematically dissects the visual transformation mechanisms of the human subconscious in traditional abstract paintings—such as the connection between Kandinsky’s “The Spiritual in Art” and the id impulse. The research findings indicate that traditional abstract painting is a visual crystallization of the interplay between human subconsciousness, instinctual desires, and external reality, while AI generated abstract painting is a patterned recombination of human artistic data by algorithms, lacking genuine spiritual experience and instinctual drive. This paper aims to provide a new perspective for understanding the essential boundaries of artistic creation in the AI era and to expand the application of psychoanalytic theory in the field of digital art.