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Good Artists Steal

posted January 6, 2009 - 12:19am
Good Artists Steal

So I work as a freelance graphic designer and one of my Christmas presents from a client was a t-shirt from the brand Crooks & Castles. The shirt just has bold letters down the front spelling out one of my favorite quotes from Picasso, "Bad artists copy good artists steal."< p>

It's a quote that I've found to confuse some people. Especially people that aren't in an industry dealing with art or creativity. My client is definitely one of those people. Turns out they gave me the shirt because they didn't understand it at all but thought it was interesting and wanted an explanation.

My interpretation of it would be that a 'good artist' is somebody that takes in their surroundings (stealing them in a sense) and turns them into their own art. Whether it is other artists work that we are taking pieces of or just every day occurrences. Instead of a 'bad artist' who copies, or mimics, what they see.

I'm a little curios to see what other artists, or non-artists, think of this quote and if the agree with it or not.

Author: thestiltsman
-A +A


Comments

How far can you go?

thestiltsman - Tue, 2009-6-1 6:11 pm
That's exactly it, but how far can we take inspiration. There comes a time where if you use one artist or writer for your sole inspiration that you will ultimately start copying them. View the rest of my posts here

View the rest of my posts here

It's a question of originality

jdubhub - Tue, 2009-6-1 12:36 am
It is an interesting concept, but can be considered the difference between being inspired by the original (stealing) versus using the original for personal gain (copying). If you consider art movements, such as Impressionism, there were many Impressionists but only one Monet. If another person was inspired by Monet and painted something that could be called Impressionistic, he is hailed as an Impressionist. If someone took a photograph of a Monet painting and made a print of his painting without giving due credit, he would be called a fraud and a crook. In the writing world, I can read a Stephen King novel and be inspired to write a novel about characters in similar circumstances or set in a similar small town. If I take his literal words, change the names of the characters and maybe the name of the town, that's plagiarism and theft of intellectual property. JOIN US IN TOASTING YOUR FUTURE SUCCESS!

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