We have asked one of the generative artificial intelligence programs to recreate for us the portrait of the famous character by Miguel de Cervantes.
The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha is the best-selling novel in history. Created by the immortal Spanish genius of universal literature, Miguel de Cervantes , it became a classic of Spanish literature in translation. Since its publication in two parts in 1605 and 1615, this novel starring Sancho Panza and the peculiar Don Quixote of La Mancha, has deeply influenced art and culture in general, consolidating itself as a masterpiece of world narrative. Today, we have asked the artificial intelligence of Midjourney to recreate for us what this character would be like in real life.
Generative AI refers to a category of artificial intelligence designed to generate new content, whether it be text, images, music… AIs like MidJourney, Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E use sophisticated algorithms to create new and often surprisingly imaginative visual content. Tools like Midjourney leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms to create and generate high-quality images, illustrations, and graphic designs.
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Do you know what the AI story is about?
Table of Contents
When asking another of the most popular AIs, ChatGPT tells us that “it is a novel about a man named Alonso Quijano, who becomes obsessed with books of chivalry and decides to become a knight himself, putting on armor and embarking on a quest to bring justice to the world. He changes his name; he christens himself “Don Quixote de la Mancha” and sets out on his journey accompanied by his faithful squire, Sancho Panza.
Throughout the novel
Don Quixote encounters a variety of challenges and obstacles , from attacking windmills that he mistakes for giants, to being imprisoned by a duke and duchess who find his “antics” amusing. Along the way, he also encounters a variety of characters, from peasants and shepherds to noblemen and women, all of whom are affected by his quixotic activities.
This is what Don Quixote would look like, imagined by AI
And what would this man, tormented by delusions and with an unfocused but grandiloquent mission, look like? Midjourney has generated several images that exemplify Don Quixote’s journey from start to finish, starting with the portrait presented in this article in its most idealized but equally iconic version: Alonso Quijano in his homeland with the windmills in the background, which he would later face, thinking that they were enemy giants.
At first glance, Don Quixote’s behavior may seem merely eccentric, even charming. However, as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Don Quixote is disturbed. Among other things, he sees himself as a heroic knight who saves the world from evil and is prone to wild delusions, quite often becoming violent and aggressive when he thinks of his imaginary world mixed with reality that his ideals are being threatened.
But Don Quixote’s madness is not always presented as something negative. In fact, there are moments in “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha” in which his delusions allow him to see the world in a new and unique way, and perceive things that others cannot, a more than interesting aspect of the novel. This conjunction between reality, madness, illusion and grotesque, mixes the endearing, the pathetic and the humorous, within a complicated human mind that is driven by a deep sense of morality and the continuous desire to always do what it believes is right.
How to create images with Midjourney
Step 1: Set up your account
First, you need to register and set up a MidJourney account which involves subscribing to one of the many paid plans that are available.
Step 2: Access the MidJourney bot
MidJourney typically operates through Discord, a popular communication app. Once you have the account, you will need to join the MidJourney Discord server where the AI bot operates.
Step 3: Understanding the commands
MidJourney uses a set of commands that you can type into the Discord chat to tell the AI what to generate. The basic command is usually structured like this: /imagine message: [image description here].
Step 4: Creating the message or prompt
The quality of the image generated by MidJourney depends greatly on how we describe the command. We should be as descriptive as possible. For example, instead of saying “a dog,” we’ll simply give it as much detail as possible: “a small, white, furry dog playing in a sunny park.”
Step 5: Start the generation process
Once we have entered the complete prompt line, we will send the message in the Discord chat. The bot will receive the command and start generating the image. This process can take a few seconds or a little longer depending on the speed we have configured.
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Step 6: Review and refine
Once the image is generated, you can review it. If it’s not exactly what you wanted, you can refine the result by adjusting the message or using additional commands to vary the results.
Step 7: Download or modify more
Once you are happy with the image, you can download it. If you want to make further edits, MidJourney offers options to further enhance the image to a higher resolution or create edits to the initial image. The best thing to do with Midjourney is to experiment, try it out. With practice you can master its capabilities and create stunning images.
