IS DIGITAL ART REALLY ART?

I know that probably sounds a dumb question coming from someone who is clearly on the digital end of the art spectrum, but real paintings are like holy monuments and gazing upon works by the old masters feels like looking at the real thing, while the digital art that I knock out on my tablet seems like a much lower art form.

Once in a while I get the urge to do a real painting, using actual drippy paint brushes on a canvas.

It feels like a religious practice, something a zen Buddhist nun might do, but it’s so fucking slow, and once I've finished a painting the first thing I want to do is take a photo of it and start editing it on my tablet. Or more accurately, once I’ve half finished a painting I want to finish it on my tablet because there is so much cool stuff I can’t do using paint.

A real life painting looks best on a wall but for a blog or a webpage a photo of the same painting is just not as gripping.

Here is a photo of one of my paintings "Pink Dog Eats Popsicle Creature" with some digital enhancement:

Although I like the original painting, truth is, I looked at it for a while and started thinking how much better it could look with some edits. Here is a photo of the painting with a lot less editing:

Not as exciting, but it is at least “the real thing”

And that is my existential dilemma - are digital pictures real art? There is a voice in my head saying "only real paintings are proper art, and digital pictures worthless fakes”

I wonder if other digital artists have a voice like that?

Annoying fucker, I want to bitch slap him sometimes...

Here are a couple more digital edits of my paintings:

“Angry Blobman Gets Filled Up At A Bar” - by FroT (Acrylic paint on canvas, with digital editing)

“Froghead Mind Trip” - by FroT (Acrylic paint on board, with digital editing)

PS. A bit of testing - what image size looks best on Hive?

500x500:

700x700:

750x750:

1000x1000: