Walking Away from Giants

The world of visual art has its contradictions, and one of the most perplexing is the taboo on appropriation. In the humanities, to reference other people’s intellectual ideas is considered to be good research. In music, training in instruments and the adoption of a musical genre is seen to expand possibilities. In cooking, learning existing recipes leads to refinement. In the visual arts, however, appropriation is generally seen as a sign that the artist is a copyist lacking in creativity.

The taboo on appropriation was starkly revealed in 2010 when it emerged that Sam Leach’s Proposal for a Landscaped Cosmos, which won the coveted Wynne Prize, had appropriated its composition from Adam Pynacker’s 1660 painting of the Italian countryside, Boatmen Moored on the Shore of an Italian Lake. Many critics were in uproar and called for Leach to be stripped of his prize.

The criticisms were a little unfair because, composition aside, the two paintings were completely different. Leach took a composition of an imagined European countryside and was able to map over an aesthetic in a way that looked identifiably Australian. Ironically, the appropriation also gave the two paintings a very different intellectual idea. Pynacker’s painting was an imaginary conception of an Italian countryside, and by referencing it, Leach was exploring ideas about the landscape of imagination.

The inability to see the uniqueness, talent and intellectual value of Leach’s work revealed the great prejudice that exists against those visual artists that are anything but individuals producing in a cultural vacuum. In short, to show the influence of others in one’s work is bad. To be completely original is good.

As well as being perplexing because it is not in conformity with other creative disciplines, visual art’s taboo on appropriation is perplexing because it is out of step with visual art’s modernist tradition. Most of the iconic twentieth-century artists were appropriators. It would be reasonable to believe that the legacy of these artists would act as a kind of symbolic approval for artists who show they have been influenced by, or learnt from, other artists.

Pablo Picasso was one of the most successful of these appropriators. Contrary to common misconception, his cubist style was not his own creation. It was developed by his friend Georges Braque, who had been inspired by the flat perspectives of Paul Cezanne. Sometimes Picasso used the cubist style to paint models. Sometimes he used it to interpret other artists’ work, such as Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez.

In addition to appropriating the styles and compositions of other artists, Picasso appropriated stories. For example, he looked at ancient Greek myths and gave them a visual language in his own style. Picasso’s work was derivative, but it would be wrong to say he was a copyist or that he lacked creativity. His work showed the influence of others, but it was unmistakably Picasso.

Another pioneer of modernism, Vincent van Gogh, was also an appropriator. His distinctive expressionist style seemed to be a result of trying to learn Georges Seurat’s pointillism and copying Japanese prints. The pointillism gave van Gogh the idea to pair complementary colours to harness the emotion of colour. The Japanese prints perhaps gave van Gogh a greater appreciation for a flat perspective and black outlines. The style he came up with was derivative of existing art styles but, like the blending of colours, different from its composite elements.

Andy Warhol was another artist who appropriated the work of others to create imagery that was unmistakably his own. Warhol basically scanned the world around him for images that he felt had some kind of iconic potential. He then made prints of them in a way that showed his own personality. One of the most famous series was based on Wang Qizhi’s portrait of Mao Zedong. Warhol enlarged it, transferred it onto a silk screen and then added some colour. Warhol’s work was derivative, but it was unmistakably Warhol.

As well as existing in visual forms, appropriation also occurs in conceptual forms. In her book Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton wrote, “In Britain, the press never tires of the question, ‘Is it art?’” She seemed to be referring to a cultural pastime amongst British artists to put something unusual in a gallery which provokes a discussion about whether it belongs there. One such example appeared to be the Stuckism International Gallery displaying a dead shark caught and displayed by shop owner Eddie Saunders two years before Damien Hirst’s shark, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind. The shark was titled A Dead Shark Isn’t Art. Even though the shark was caught and displayed by someone who wasn’t an artist, by displaying it in a gallery, context communicated that it was art. This was the same idea pioneered by Marcel Duchamp in 1917 when he called a urinal Fountain and displayed it in a gallery. The context asked the question about whether a urinal was art. Arguably, Hirst’s shark was also an appropriation of the Duchamp method because it involved displaying imagery not typically associated with art in a context that typically is associated with art. 

Albert Einstein once said, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” It is a comment that perhaps best explains why visual art has maintained a taboo on appropriation despite icons of the modernist tradition being compulsive appropriators. In short, the great modernists are not seen as appropriators because their methods have been obscured in the historical narrative. Consequently, instead of acting as a symbol of the benefits that can be achieved by learning from others, they act as symbols of the importance of visual artists rebelling against others to create a unique style.

In the case of Picasso, perhaps he was seen as a pioneer because the market was not yet aware that the cubist style was Braque’s invention, or that cubism was inspired by Cezanne’s impressionism. In short, when the average person celebrates Picasso, they don’t see him as an appropriator, they see him as an artist who disregarded those who went before.

Additionally, when Picasso started applying the cubist style to the composition of pre-existing art works, he was referencing a composition that the market had come to revere but he was doing it in a way that was not immediately obvious. As a result, his paintings had a sense of familiarity that the market liked, but the market was not able to easily identify why it was familiar.

While it was not so obvious that Picasso was an appropriator, Andy Warhol’s work was obviously taken from the work of others. Perhaps Warhol got away with it because most of the people who created the appropriated imagery did not define themselves as artists. For reasons that can be debated, there seems to be more of a taboo on appropriating the work of artists than there is appropriating work by non-artists. Admittedly, Wang’s Mao was an exception, but because most Americans had never heard of Wang, they may have presumed that the image came from a newspaper.

In many respects, Warhol seemed to be acting in the tradition of Duchamp in that he was selecting imagery to transform into art by displaying it in the context of a gallery. However, because Warhol was a printer, and Duchamp’s urinal was conceptual, the link between the two was not so obvious. Again, Warhol was doing something that had a strong air of familiarity, but he was doing it in such a way that the link was not obvious.

Ironically, the taboo on appropriation has perhaps contributed to the homogenisation of modern art. Artists who try obsessively hard to be different usually end up producing work that all looks the same. The world is full of artists trying to reinvent the wheel, and who end up producing unrefined structures that have already been created by someone else. While there may be independence in the process, there is little originality in the outcome. On the other hand, appropriators take the wheels of others and fashion them into complex machines that go far beyond what is currently known.

Human history has shown that culture has always been, and will always be, the basis of human achievement. There are good reasons why learning from others, both past and present, is celebrated, and even demanded, in most creative disciplines. The fact that the same ethics do not reign in visual art is perhaps a result of the misreading of the historical narrative. Instead of appreciating the role that social learning played in the art of Picasso, van Gogh, Warhol and Hirst, the narrative has proposed that the icons of modern art neglected all those who went before and walked beside. For artists today, the misreading of history has made them believe that a unique view is best attained by walking away from giants, rather than standing on their shoulders. It is a misreading that has often produced unoriginal and unrefined art that future generations will rightly not want to appropriate. 

Chad Swanson is a Canberra artist.