Connectivity 28/09/10

ITAP

Integrating Theory and Practice

 

'Notions of Originality'

The question arises whether originality exists in art and design anymore. Both artists and designers take inspiration from those that have come before them. There is nothing wrong with that…but where do we draw the line when ‘stealing’ someone else's ideas? Diego de Silva Velazquez's  'Las Meninas - (The maids of honour),' 1656, has been subject to replicates. The original is based on a room in the Madrid palace of King Philip IV of Spain where Velazquez portrays himself w orking on a canvas. Individuals are staring out of the frame and interacting with others around them, the mirror behind showing the upper bodies of the King and Queen. The image has been recognized as one of the most important paintings in Western art history, so there is no question to why others would want to ‘steal’ these ideas. Picasso created many versions of this painting, one in 1957. Approaching the image differently to Velazquez due to the differences in, for example, audience and culture, was praised for his work as it constituted to an 'exhaustive study of form, rhythm, colour and movement.'  Then Joel-Peter Witkin created his version in 1987. The compositions are greatly alike but the reconstructions relate to the time and place the images where created, as the meaning of art changes through time unless we know exactly what it was used for and when. Velazquez would have been aiming his work at 'high class' people, people with large amounts of wealth in Spain during the mid 1600s. Picasso would have also aimed at a Spanish culture but expressing the popular art movement during this time, Cubism. Witkin's work, however, uses a more modern type of art, combining media, including photography.

 

'Can recontextualised ideas be contemporary?'

 

The meaning of art changes through time. To understand it’s meaning the time it was made and uses have to be taken into account. Deconstructing the originals and rebuilding them in a form that the current artist can use will change the context of the piece. Elsie Wright's 'Cottingley Fairies' (1917) caused amazement among the public, as the image was believed to be real. It was a form of trickery, and subsequently caused a belief in fairies. This was all based upon the idea that the camera and children never lie. It didn't matter that the fairies were just cutout images, places around the girl. Aiming at an audience of that time who weren’t used to art that was used to deceive, believed in it. Similar images have been produced in recent years, such as Alison Jackson's image of Prince Philip staring at a photograph of a nude Marilyn Monroe  (2003). This was less likely to fool the audience as misleading images were everywhere in the 21st Century. This audience is continuously exposed to manipulated photographs due to the increased levels in technologies, such as Photoshop. Even though it may look more realistic they aren’t fooled as easily and the image is intended more for humour and entertainment, whereas made earlier in history, this could have caused uproar.