DALL·E prompts from Art History, Part 1 Prehistoric to Medieval

In this series of articles, we’ll be examining art styles from the history of Western Art, and documenting how effectively the AI art tool DALL·E can mimic them.

Just take me to the prompts!👇

To make comparisons as straightforward as possible, we’re using the same two subjects for every style. This makes it easier to focus on the style shifts themselves.

That said, many art styles are closely associated with a certain kind of subject matter (saintly angels, lush natural landscapes, human faces) so you may get better results if your prompt has subject-style synergy. (We’ll explore this in a later update!)

Finally, this series only focuses on 2D art, like paintings, murals and drawings, rather than sculptures, pottery or the like. (This is because we’d also need to define how the 3D objects are photographed/depicted, adding another layer of complexity.) We’ll take a tour through some of those possibilities in a future article.

DALL·E x western art historystyle guide.

DALL·E x Western art history – prompt guide

Part 1: Ancient & Medieval art
🔜 Part 2: Renaissance & Mannerist
🔜 Part 3: Baroque to Neo-classic
🔜 Part 4: 19th century art styles
🔜 Part 5: Modern & contemporary art styles

A few tips on getting the results you want:

🙇🏻‍♂️ Go back to the source: I’m no art historian – so you’ll have to judge how closely the specimens below match their given style. As a disclaimer, most of the examples below were generated from a single request, with no further fine-tuning, so with only a little effort, you should be able to do surpass them! Refer back to original materials from the eraand you may be able to derive more accurate results.

🖼 Double-down on style prompts: prompting for an era or culture, like ‘Ancient Rome’, is a good start, but to amplify your request, try including related terms such as year, location or artist, such as ‘Ancient Roman painting, a fresco from 200 BCE discovered in Pompeii.’

🧹 Clean it up: if the results seem too ‘scuffed up’, try using terms you might read in an art textbook, like ‘well-preserved’, ‘outstanding example of’, ‘in perfect condition’, ‘careful restoration.’

👩🏼‍🚀 Boost the subject: if your desired output is an anachronism (like astronauts in Ancient Egypt) DALL·E might lose confidence in making the astronauts very ‘astronaut-y’, because it considers the two concepts so divergent. As a result, your astronauts might end up looking more like regular Egyptians. You can counteract this by being more specific and tautological in your subject language, so: ‘astronauts, in space, wearing white spacesuits with helmets.’

1. Cave painting

The oldest surviving art created by humans dates back 43,000 years. Read about cave paintings on Wikipedia.

**Cave painting** of [subject], **prehistoric art** in **red ochre** from from Lascaux Cave

2. Detail from Ancient Egyptian mural

Whoa there, Pharoah! ‘Ancient Egyptian art’ actually covers over 6,000 years of history, up to 400 CE – for comparison, we’re only 1600 years away from that! It obviously contains multitudes. But ask for Ancient Egyptian art straight-up, and this is what you get.

[SUBJECT], detail from an Ancient Egyptian mural. (Other terms to try: *tomb, register, from Luxor*)

3. Ancient Egyptian papyri

Some Ancient Egyptian works are on papyrus, like The Book of the Dead.

Detail of well-preserved Ancient Egyptian papyrus depicting [subject]

4. Fayum portrait

Although Ancient Egypt commonly brings to mind long murals of unusually-arranged figures, the civilisation also gave rise to this fine painting style. Also known as ‘mummy portraits.’

‘A fine example of a Fayum portrait, depicting [SUBJECT], well-preserved mummy portrait on wood’

5. Decorative Minoan mural

Ah, the Minoans, famous for their… things, and stuff. Art from this Mediterranean culture covers 3000 to 1100 BC. Find out more about their art, so you too can boast: ‘Minoans? Me know ’em!’

Decorative Minoan mural depicting [SUBJECT], well-preserved fresco painting

6. Ancient Roman mosaic

Tile, and the world tiles with you. Ancient Rome was well known for images constructed from tessera, with surviving examples from walls and floors. Read about Ancient Roman mosaics on Wikipedia.

Ancient Roman mosaic depicting [SUBJECT], well-preserved opus tesellatum from Ancient Rome

7. Ancient Roman painting

Apart from the dancing astronauts, and the cat in the sunglasses, what did the Romans ever do for us? See the Met Museum’s guide to Roman painting.

Ancient Roman painting depicting [SUBJECT], superb [FOURTH] Style frieze in Pompeii

9. Detail from Nuremberg Chronicle

A famous document from 1493, full of illustrations of the world. Read about it here.

18 features we’d love to see in DALL·E 2 next

Detail from Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493, of [SUBJECT], Liber Chronicarum illustration by Michael Wolgemut

10. Byzantine icon

Halo halo halo, what have we here then? Byzantine art comprises the body of Christian Greek artistic products of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. So sayeth Wikipedia.

Byzantine icon of [SUBJECT], well-preserved example of historic art from 200CE

11. Early Christian icon

Holy moly. When you absolutely positively need a circle around your subject’s head, look no further than the styles of early Christian icons. Read more.

Christian icon painting depicting [SUBJECT], well-preserved example discovered in Sinai

12. …from lavish, gilded Codex

The codex was the pricy predecessor of the modern day boo – manuscripts created by scribes on sheets of vellum and, most relevant to our needs, often lusciously illustrated, or ‘illuminated.’ Read all about ’em.

Detail from lavish gilded Codex 9th century, an illustration of [SUBJECT], manuscript with golden decorations

13. Mozarabic art

Let’s mosy on through art history with some Mozarabic Art, the art of the Iberian Peninusla (site of modern day Spain) back when Arabs ran the show in the 8th – 11th centuries. See more.