MAVA CROSS COURSE SEMINARS

MA ILLUSTRATION. LED BY JAN WOOLLEY. ROOM 114

ORIGINALITY?

In the field of Illustration plagiarism has persistently remained an area for discussion, the role of historical influences on visual language, style and ideas have remained issues for debate.

At which point does inspiration and influence stop and plagiarism and forgery begin? And is there indeed any such thing as originality or genius.

Or is a modern genius one that absorbs and reacts creatively to the past and the present, taking visual and intellectual influences and using their own visual voice, re-turning ideas, to regenerate meaning to a new audience.

J. Woolley

‘GOOD ARTISTS COPY; GREAT ARTISTS STEAL’QUOTE FROM PABLO PICASSOQuote from T.S Eliot

“One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. Eliot, T.S., “Philip Massinger,” The Sacred Wood, New York: Bartleby.com, 2000

The Mask and The Mirror

Pablo Picasso is generally viewed as one of the most original artists of the twentieth century. His cubist style shook the entire art world. Most people would not question placing Picasso in the same lofty realm as Van Gogh, Renoir, and Da Vinci. Would you be surprised to learn that one of Picasso´s largest bodies of work were copies of these other past masters? In fact, that is precisely the case with Picasso, and art critics have titled these unique Picasso works "Variations on Past Masters." As much as Picasso was leading the art world into uncharted waters with his cubist works, he was keeping his eye trained on the past with these variations. It is remarkable that Picasso could on one hand replicate the essence of a painting, yet on the other hand present it in a brand new format. One of the artists Picasso targeted for his variations was the great Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. When Picasso was getting ready to start his Velázquez variations in the late 1950s, Velázquez´s masterpiece Las Meninas was nearing its three hundredth birthday. Furthermore, Diego Velázquez is routinely hailed as the father of Spanish art. Picasso was worried that if he copied Velázquez´s paintings, they would be seen as copies, when they were only intended to be his own representations. In a letter to his close friend Jaime Sabartés, Picasso wrote,"...I would create a painting of The Maids of Honor [Las Meninas] sure to horrify the specialist in the copying of old masters. It would not be The Maids of Honor he saw when he looked at Velázquez´s picture; it would be my

Maids of Honor."Picasso is clearly cognizant of his effect on the art world. He realizes that if he were to create a copy of a masterpiece, some would not be able to separate the copy from the original. This is blurry line Picasso was leery to cross especially with such a revered Spanish painter as Diego Velázquez.Yet, Picasso proceeded to copy the works of Velázquez. The Velázquez´s copies culminated in the modernization of Las Meninas, released on August 17, 1957. Picasso was seventy-five when it was unveiled - the same age when his own father died (which was a fact Picasso was only too cognizant). The enormous oil canvas painting measured 76 3/8" by 102 1/4". It was Picasso´s largest work since his 1937 masterpiece Guernica. In fact, there are many similarities between Guernica and Picasso´s Las Meninas. They are both horizontally oriented on the

canvas (unlike the Velázquez´s original). Both are painted in a grisaille (gray) palette projecting a dark and haunting image. These aspects clearly stamp the unique Picasso signature on the painting. However, the comparison between Las Meninas and Guernica ends there. Its lineage is clearly with Velázquez.Picasso retains the striking visual effect of the infanta tended to by her numerous maids of honor. He retains Velázquez´s depiction of the infanta with the white dress that forces the child to be the eye of the storm in this whirlwind of people and events. One can also see the King and Queen in the mirror behind the painter albeit in an almost comical expression not seen in the original. Yet, the visual space of the palace room has been compressed into a cacophony of cubist shapes. Some of the maids and especially the pet below the infanta are completely devoid of any detail save a black outline. Picasso has also shifted some of the figures in the paintings in an almost deliberate attempt to further distance himself from the Velázquez´s original.The painter (presumably Picasso´s depiction of himself a la Velázquez) depicted on the left side of the painting is the most chaotic figure in the painting, while in the original Velázquez painting, the painter is the most ordinary figure. In the variation, all of the lines used to draw the painter lead towards a central point in the middle of the figure. The exterior image of the painter bleeds into the surrounding area. It is as if the painter does not really exist there at that moment and is only a blurry figment of imagination. Picasso also alters one other major figure in his variation - a figure that many art scholars have suggested holds the key to Velázquez´s intention with Las Meninas.A striking difference in Picasso´s variation is the increased visibility of José Nieto, the Queen´s chamberlain. Picasso, looking on Las Meninas, once said, "The door José Nieto holds open suggests the entrance of fascist soldiers into the studio of Velázquez with a warrant for his arrest." Nieto, who is almost an afterthought to the unobservant viewer in the original (but definitely not placed there as an afterthought by Velázquez), has been altered by Picasso into a menacing figure contrasted by his dark figure and the light background behind him. Nieto´s position in this variation has also been altered slightly to be directly above the child. It is now impossible for any viewer to ignore Nieto. The eyes are immediately drawn to him. His shadow casts a direct light over a substantial part of the painting. Picasso forces us to ponder questions about this mysterious dark figure. Is he a friend or foe? Is he coming or going? Why does he have no detail at all? But, we do not have enough information to make even a futile attempt at answering these questions. All of these distinctions from the original Velázquez painting are relatively minor when we consider that the most important quality of the Velázquez original is lost - the aspect of being right there at that moment in that room. By use of the Cubist motif, Picasso severs that tie with the audience. Velázquez´s highly realistic painting makes you feel as if you were right there, but with the chaos portrayed by the cubist figures, this feeling is lost. The viewer now feels distant from the events portrayed in the picture. We can no longer relate to the infanta with all of the maids of honor surrounding her.If Picasso had copied the Velázquez painting perfectly, and a painter of his skill could quite easily do that, a conundrum would arise. How to tell the difference between the two? There would not be a way to distinguish between Picasso´s Las Meninas and Velázquez´s Las Meninas. If the physical images were the same, how could they differ? Yet, Picasso did not do that. By making small

QUOTE FROM JUSTIN R EREN KRANTZ-PHD AT U.C.A. AND HAS LED A NUMBER OF CONFERENCES ON OPEN SOURCING.

PABLO PICASSO VELASQUES

THE GENIUS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

JONATHAN BATE

“One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. Eliot, T.S., “Philip Massinger,” The Sacred Wood, New York: Bartleby.com, 2000.

QOUTE T.S ELIOT

‘Style is the most valuable asset of the modern artist. That's probably why so many styles are reported lost or stolen each year’

QUOTE FROM BRAD HOLLAND

BRAD HOLLAND

STEINBERG

BOOKS

THE GENIIUS OF SHAKESPEARE BY JONATHAN BATE

THE ILLUSTRATORS GUIDE TO LAW AND BUSINESS PRACTICE BY SIMON STERN

INSIDE THE BUSINESS OF ILLUSTRATION BY STEVEN HELLER AND MARSHAL ARISMAN

PICASSO A BIOGRAPHY BY PATRICK O’BRIAN

MASK AND THE MIRROR –JUSTINRERENKRANTZ-BLOG