Art is Theft
 

One of the numerous incongruities I deal with almost daily is the notion that Art (note the capitalization) is as far from originality as can anything be.

There is no such thing as original art. Except, for philosophical musings, in cave dwellings.

The entirety of all Art, as with Math, builds upon what has been already revealed.

The few and rare exceptions, in my dubious distinction as having as having a viable opinion, would be Picasso, Michelangelo, some ancient Chinese guy and those anonymously hairy cavemen in France.

Whenever I have a discussion with learned friends, I premise my thoughts with the outright admission and confession that, I have never had one that is original.

Art is theft.

Art is translating what is in your head to some medium for others to observe. From that point of view, it's all original and unique as it's a representation and interpretation of what is in the artist's head unless it's specifically an attempt at a counterfeit, copy, or reproduction of some other art.

Theft implies taking in whole or in part something that belongs to someone else. A better term would be derivative. That is what most of Western thought has been for quite some time. If the inspiration is properly attributed (cited) and not claimed as one's own, then the following is derivative, and not theft.

art isnt theft.

art is expression, and in order to be expressive there must be an expresser, and someone to express too. and that means that art is cultural. all art is built within the context of culture. and its only meaning exists only within culture. there is no beauty without culture, there is no aesthetic without culture, there is nothing artistic without culture. all of it is built on a culture, a culture that is both definitive of the art, and also changed by the art.

this is all pretty much your college philosophy class.

file under: foucault

This is silly. FOA, @cockerpunk missed the point entirely although his thoughts are not wrong.

AFA the cave dwellings go, the first scratch began the revolution. Everything after that is theft, according to your thesis. Your suggestion that Picasso and Michelangelo are originals is also preposterous. WRT to the 'ancient Chinese guy' see the caveman theory.

And it was Picasso himself that said art is theft.

So what are you trying to do here?

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you may find yourself hard pressed if trying to defend picasso as a rare originalist.
his entire cubist movement was taken from african woodcuts.
picasso said that good artists borrow from others while great artists steal.

How many billions of people walk the earth today? How many have? Even if, at best, it rhymes with what has already been done, life without art quickly gets pretty boring.

The techniques may be learnt at art school but the paintings created are not theft. Each one has the artist own flair and their own take on things.

I quote myself:

Whenever I have a discussion with learned friends, I premise my thoughts with the outright admission and confession that, I have never had one that is original.

Art isn't theft but it is Left or Liberal, typically.

if not original you have, at the least, an interesting idea there.
when making an admission others would preface the premise of unorginality where in your case the premise can be admitted as a confession at any point.

All art is a lie- Leo Kottke

There is no art. Only craft.
Art is the craft of being 'different'.
-and yes- thievery abounds! :).

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Bull Craft - Yoko

The "problem" with this thesis is the unspoken premise the either the whole of humanity passed through the caves to see the art only then to steal the idea for some unstated purpose (not likely); or that the few "original artists" went all around the world seeding their art into other regions for unknown reasons (artistic hegemony?); or (more likely) art developed at various loci independently withing the melieu of those small societies over quite some time.

Moreover, the realistic impressionism of Lascaux isn't an example of the musings of a first day artist. Those are the result of long learned techniques. So, actually, those renderings are the highlights of an artistic path derived from the "stealing" of earlier artistic developments.

Equating art with theft does a tremendous disservice to art, IMO. Nothing is original is a wild goose chase. Art evolves and speaks. Appreciating what you see doesn't have to be diminished by the fact that something similar came before it, especially if one hasn't seen it before.

AI is most certainly theft. The human race is being robbed of its entire artistic history by tech companies, and no one seems to understand the gravity of what is happening.

There is still real art, in capturing scenes few if anyone will ever see in real life. The real art of a fantastic sculpture of the talented sculptors in stone is real art.

The banana duct taped to a wall is garbage, but the critics all called it genius. Much of that new modern "art" is just a tax scheme. Have the critics proclaim it great art, sell it for an undisclosed sum, have the critics and appraisers say it is worth millions. Donate it to a museum, and take a huge tax write off.

IMHO "Art" is the creation of something from nothing more than an idea. If an artist is painting a person's portrait, then you'd expect it to be an accurate image. However, if a person is simply representing their vision of a scene or object then they are free to present it as they see it. They may imitate the brush stroke of a previous artist or even the use of color., but unless they are purposefully copying a style then as soon as they touch their medium it becomes an original rendering of their objet d'art. Just my opinion.

Everything we do is derivative to some extent. Everything builds on what came before. DME built on EFI, which built on MFI. Evolution is real, even in art.