Everything new is well stolen old: Plagiarism, imitation, coincidences, clones in the history of painting

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Recently, it has become fashionable in the art world to call any creative borrowing plagiarismor even theft. The use by masters of ideas, plots, techniques, compositional and color solutions, unique creative finds of other artists is an ancient phenomenon, like art itself, which is difficult to give an objective assessment.

Plagiarism or imitation

It is difficult to steal someone else's thought of a master who carries it in his head until he brings it to life. It is as easy as shelling pears to assimilate a thought that has acquired some form. It is the theft and appropriation of other people's materials that is plagiarism, which can be compared with ordinary theft.

This negative phenomenon has worried artists at all times, since the idea, storyline, compositional construction and color scheme are undoubtedly the intellectual property of the master.

There are many examples when artists, inspired by the works of classics or their contemporaries, took as a basis either a plot or a composition and reworked them in their own way, put in all their skill and experience, which ultimately gave works that reflect their creative individual vision. and sometimes even surpassed the originals.

In the visual arts, as an example, this phenomenon can often be seen among English artists who relied in their work on the tradition of Italian art of the 15th century of the early Renaissance. The classics of other times sinned with this, and contemporaries also sin with this.

At its core, imitation is following an example, a model. It so happens that not having his own ideas, his own manner of writing, the artist uses ready-made works of masters for samples, depriving himself of the need to work on increasing his own potential.

On the other hand, borrowing ideas in painting has a positive impact, since the artist, using them for his further work, develops and improves the already embodied thought by another author. To some extent, this is an impetus to the creation and development of their creative activity.

Twin paintings by the same author in different years

The most striking example of the creation of several copies of the same work by the same master are paintings by Titian Vecellio, where you can clearly see how the artist's view of the image of Danaë or Mary Magdalene has changed over twenty years.

Remarkably, in all four of Titian's paintings, the same model is depicted in the image of the Magdalene - Julia Festina.

As you can see from the selection of reproductions, the ideas inherent in art are too diverse, and it is difficult to determine the degree of their borrowing or plagiarism, because in any case, each artist put his hand, his thoughts, his creative approach to the creation.

In my time Titian Vecellio was accused of stealing the plot a friend of his when creating the painting "Venus of Urbino", however, depicting women in this position during the time of Titian was a widespread practice. And the fact of plagiarism has not been proven.