Plagiarism as the Moving Force of Art Development
Последняя статья о плагиате для Unplag.com. На этот раз пишу о своём убеждении, что плагиат стимулирует развитие искусств. Как всегда, ниже полный текст статьи на английском, оригинал же можно отыскать здесь.
Plagiarism as the Moving Force of Art Development
Every system has its own rules, laws, schemes and
connections. Without certain rules there would be no systematic approaches in
science, politics, culture and art. The moving force of science is
data collection, research and experiments. Politics is pushed
forward by politicians and sometimes people or nations, cultureis
influenced directly by people, their tastes, knowledge, education, and memory.
WHAT IS ART MOVED FORWARD BY?
In the heading of this article, I named plagiarism as
the moving force of art development. But do you agree with that? Do you agree
that the act of stealing someone’s work leads to a new work of art or better
work of art? Do you really think that an artistic fraud leads to something
extraordinarily good and perfect?
I would not be fighting for that idea either, but I am
pretty sure that plagiarism has a positive influence on art development, even
though it is treated negatively by our world and culture.
Without a doubt, as an artist I would be mortally
offended if I found out that someone in the country where I live or somewhere
across the ocean took my work, copied it and presented it as their own
masterpiece. But, as a true artist, I would be extremely gladdened by that
fact. You must wonder what I mean by this.
If you had enough time to read the semi-biographic
novels and short stories or essays of famous authors, if you read enough novels
about the famous artists, if you had read the diaries and notes of the painters
like Van Gogh, you would know the answer for sure. Every artist – a poet, a
dramatist, a painter, a sculptor, a composer – as the true bearer of the depths
of art and primeval artistic instincts, cares about the only single thing.
Artists’ sincerest aim and goal is to objectivise
their artistic instincts, desires and urges, to implement them into writing,
musical sets, sculptures, buildings, and paintings – to ease the artistic pain
and strong desire to create.
They create one artwork, they feel better, free,
independent of the artistic muse locked inside them. Several hours, days, weeks
or months later the muse becomes strong again, the willingness and necessity to
create grows and at a certain moment becomes irresistible. And then the new work
of art is presented to the world. Some artists managed to make a success out of
their inner artistic muses, some managed to cooperate with them and live more
or less happily, others fought their whole life with muses’ desires and the
expectations of society. At the same time there might be talented people who do
not have the artistic urge and have never met the muse of the arts. They would
be able to trace the general tendency, copy from this or that artist and
present a commercially successful piece – artworks that cost money but hardly
have any soul.
So, returning to the question – why should I be happy
if my work is stolen by another artist? If money does not matter for me and the
only thing I care is fighting my urge for artistic expression, I would be happy
to know that one person saw/ read/ listened to my work. It means I have one
reader/ listener/ observer, and that means my muses reached their final
destination – I passed my vision of the world to another person, and it
actually does not matter if they accept it.
If someone steals my work – whether it is conscious or
subconscious plagiarism – I will have a feeling that my vision was very
good or prospective – another person will present it and share it, and my
artistic vision of the world will face even more people and, most likely,
spread further in forms of adaptations, copies, or transformations.
I cannot but mention the fact that all artists choose
their artistic path out of the urge for expression, and they all hope that
their works will find thankful customers and provide the artists with roofs and
food.
Commercial ingredient of the arts is one of many
factors stimulating plagiarism along with:
- a lack of imagination
- the desire to recreate old plots in modern contexts
- the willingness to create a perfect version of a not-very-perfect
artwork of other generations
- introduction of new arts
- the intention to fill in the artistic gaps
- and the permanent strong separation-integration ties between all
the arts
Commercialisation of arts stimulates copying and
adaptation – that is, plagiarism – which in its own turn pushes all the arts
further on.
Plagiarism stimulates many processes in the arts, and at least it provides a variety of forms and styles, facilitates
changes and faster spreading of some ideas. We cannot hide from it and say that
it is just an artistic fraud, we should accept the fact that it has always been
like that. The rules of art have changed drastically (to compare with the
Antiquity epoch), but the results are the same.
One artist steals from another, and this theft creates
even more adaptation by stimulation of copies to the plagiaristic copy or the
original work of art, which altogether pushes the arts further in their mutual
development.