VAN GOGH, PICASSO, GAUGIN ET AL - PLAGIARISTS OR NOT?

 

Apparently Lee Krasner painted this in 1948. It's in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, so I presume it's safe to say it's not plagiaristic. And to be precise plagiarism is copying, which is why those making a living from painting works by famous artists change the size.

On the other hand, I don't know. I don't see a change in context in Krasner's work, as is claimed for Lichtenstein or Warhol. I find it equally difficult to accept all those working in Gerhard Richter's non-representational style as anything other than poor to middling copies.

What's in a style you might ask?

The ukiyo-e woodblock prints imported from Japan after 1853 directly influenced both impressionist and post-impressionist artists such as Cezanne and Gaugin, not to mention Van Gogh, hence the flattened perspectives, bright colours and defined outlines in their work. For his part Degas adopted the three quarter perspective and asymmetrical placing of figures on a diagonal.

In turn influenced by Cezanne and Gaugin, modernists like Matisse, Picasso and their friends, namely the School of Paris, became attracted to African Sculpture and its abstraction of the human figure.

With the exception of a few copies, attributes of both Japanese and African art were absorbed into Western art in general. This appropriation was immensely liberating, hence its importance. Picasso famously said African sculptures helped him understand his purpose as an artist, that it was to mediate between perceived reality and the creativity of the human mind, not to entertain with decorative images.

In short, it freed him from naturalistic representation.

All well and good, but there is another dimension to this issue. In my last post I wrote of a recollection by the Turkish contemporary artist Yavuz Tanyeli. At an exhibition abroad with other Turkish artists a visiting curator or collector had not bothered to more than glance at any work other than his - that's original, he'd said, studying it, we don't have that here. Yavuz's paintings are representational except for his subject matter and its treatment.

So why is Monet's The Water Lily Pond not plagiaristic of Hokusai's Under The Mannen Bridge at Fukagawa? Is it content? Even the bridge he built over his famous lily pond is Japonnais, if not an exact replica. What about Van Gogh's Almond Blossoms? Or Modigliani? I grant you could be picky and say Modigliani painted nudes in the Western tradition and so on and so forth, but I'm confused, because, when I studied sumi-e in Japan, the subject matter was identical to Chinese painting. Yet nobody accuses the Japanese of plagiarising Chinese art.

I think I've made my point.

It seems to me there's a hypocrisy at work here. Western art critics and curators decide what's plagiaristic and what's not, as it suits their politics or religion. At least I know where I stand.

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