APAD: Good artists copy, great artists steal.

 

“Good artists copy, Great artists steal” means you may not be the first to try something, but you did it so well that everyone thinks of you when they see that style. Like Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh…they may have started out copying someone else, but in the end they completely stole it. When someone becomes “great” that style is now so closely associated with them that when anyone sees it they will assume its from them.

 

The quote was a favorite of Steve Jobs but he was probably (mis)quoting Pablo Picasso who said “Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal” — who in turn might be rephrasing Igor Stravinsky, but both sayings may well originate in T. S. Eliot’s dictum: “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.” — So the origins of this quote itself is an example of great artists stealing. ;-))

 

Very few things are 100% original. And, nowadays, those few things  generally cause more confusion than interest. One example I can think of off the top of my head was "Voice of Fire" by American painter Barnett Newman in 1967.  The painting was purcahsed by the National Gallery of Canada in 1989 at a cost of $1.8 million and caused great controversy at the time. When I lived in Ottawa, we visited the gallery often. I remember standing in front of the painting and staring at it for at least 10 minutes but couldn't figure it out, other than it looked like a flag of some sort.  

 

 

 

Actually I always love art from a very young age and started drawing seriously just before the onset of the Covid pandemic.  I am, of course, not an artist, but I enjoyed drawing very much, especially if an image moved me, like this photo of then German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 

 

 

 My drawing, started from the eyes

 

 Finished drawing (40cm x 50cm)

 

 

Thanks for reading, and wish you all a good Tuesday!