originality vs personal style?
herr blob
style? is originality merely a case of extreme personal style?
is it a byproduct of failed imitation? something that accidentally
results in a kind of unforseen mutation?
or, is there a clearcut boundary between personal style and
originality?
consider this. there were negroes singing the blues. whiteys tried to
imitate the negroes but didn't have the voice, nor the rhythm, and
ended up producing bullshi* blues... but in the process they created
something new and valuable.
personal style--and some degree of originality--cannot be avoided. no
matter how much you try to paint like andrew wyeth or picasso, your
intrinsic abilities will force you to do things somewhat different.
no matter how much you try to play like eric clapton, b. b. king, or
eddie van halen, your brains/fingers/temperament will produce something
noticeably different.
we tend to distinguish between traditional art and modern art, but all
arts of course grow and change. the difference is modern art is much
more open to personal 'innovations', indeed has made willful
innovations the core of its philosophy. but, even in modern arts, what
you mainly have are artists imitating modern masters, and if something
new is achieved, it's almost accidental, a matter of personal style.
traditional arts tried to suppress or control personal deviance within
what was considered valid, but there were always some innovation and
they weren't so much willed as 'accidental'--cases of mutations arising
from intrinsic abilities of the artists.
so, maybe artists shouldn't try to be original. they should just copy
whatever out there, and if they have a inborn personal style, they will
naturally transform it into something new almost as if by accident.
their failure at imitation will produce something new. like the
grateful dead were miserable at imitating the blues and their blues
wasn't what could really be called REAL blues. but, it became something
else that was really cool.
Andrew Werby
"herr blob" <cerebur...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1119810036.9...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> to what extent is 'originality' in art really a matter of personal
> style? is originality merely a case of extreme personal style?
> is it a byproduct of failed imitation? something that accidentally
> results in a kind of unforseen mutation?
[I'd say originality (which you haven't defined) can result from accidents,
as well as conscious decisions, asking questions that haven't been asked
before, or the use of new technology, which can give new answers to old
questions, or offer solutions that previously weren't available. Personal
style is usually something that has to develop; it's not an intrinsic thing.
All very young children, given the same crayons and newsprint, draw in more
or less the same style; as they grow and practice, try things out and absorb
influences, their artistic differences become evident.]
>
> or, is there a clearcut boundary between personal style and
> originality?
[There are no clearcut boundaries in art's definitions, just one thing
shading into another.]
>
> consider this. there were negroes singing the blues. whiteys tried to
> imitate the negroes but didn't have the voice, nor the rhythm, and
> ended up producing bullshi* blues... but in the process they created
> something new and valuable.
>
> personal style--and some degree of originality--cannot be avoided. no
> matter how much you try to paint like andrew wyeth or picasso, your
> intrinsic abilities will force you to do things somewhat different.
> no matter how much you try to play like eric clapton, b. b. king, or
> eddie van halen, your brains/fingers/temperament will produce something
> noticeably different.
[I'm not sure that poor imitations count as originality, even if they look
(or sound) somewhat different than the originals they emulate.]
>
> we tend to distinguish between traditional art and modern art, but all
> arts of course grow and change. the difference is modern art is much
> more open to personal 'innovations', indeed has made willful
> innovations the core of its philosophy. but, even in modern arts, what
> you mainly have are artists imitating modern masters, and if something
> new is achieved, it's almost accidental, a matter of personal style.
> traditional arts tried to suppress or control personal deviance within
> what was considered valid, but there were always some innovation and
> they weren't so much willed as 'accidental'--cases of mutations arising
> from intrinsic abilities of the artists.
[Perhaps you're giving more weight than you should to "intrinsic abilities"
and less than you might to artist's individual intentions. Certainly there
is a lot of art, modern and otherwise, that's imitative in intent, which
falls short due to lack of ability (intrinsic or not), but that's not
usually considered as innovative as art that starts out trying to do
something different in the first place.]
>
> so, maybe artists shouldn't try to be original. they should just copy
> whatever out there, and if they have a inborn personal style, they will
> naturally transform it into something new almost as if by accident.
> their failure at imitation will produce something new. like the
> grateful dead were miserable at imitating the blues and their blues
> wasn't what could really be called REAL blues. but, it became something
> else that was really cool.
[I'm not sure that the primary intent of the Grateful Dead was to imitate
the blues artists of the previous generation, as you seem to assert above.
They were open to a wide variety of influences, from blues to country music
and the nascent "acid-rock" of their peers. They came up with their own
synthesis, which is a perfectly valid means of arriving at an original
conclusion (ask Hegel). But there's nothing wrong with an artist or musician
who is just beginning to explore an art form to start by imitating the
examples of previous work he or she might admire. There's a lot to be
learned in the process. At the point this artist's work goes beyond the
original material and adds new elements, we start recognizing the artist's
contributions as novelties. As this growth process continues and the work
diverges yet more, we compliment it with the word "originality". Perhaps
it's over-rated as an artistic criterion, but it's a lot of what modern art
(and its successors) has going for it. Without it, art gradually decays, as
the original impulse of passionate creators is diluted by successive
copyings by the less creative. ]
Andrew Werby
www.unitedartworks.com
Erik A. Mattila
> "herr blob" <cerebur...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1119810036.9...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>>to what extent is 'originality' in art really a matter of personal
>>style? is originality merely a case of extreme personal style?
>>is it a byproduct of failed imitation? something that accidentally
>>results in a kind of unforseen mutation?
>
>
> [I'd say originality (which you haven't defined) can result from accidents,
> as well as conscious decisions, asking questions that haven't been asked
> before, or the use of new technology, which can give new answers to old
> questions, or offer solutions that previously weren't available. Personal
> style is usually something that has to develop; it's not an intrinsic thing.
> All very young children, given the same crayons and newsprint, draw in more
> or less the same style; as they grow and practice, try things out and absorb
> influences, their artistic differences become evident.]
This hasn't been my experience at all. I've looked at a lot of
children's art over the years. What I've noticed is that there's much
more variety and inventiveness among the pre-school children, and the
grade schooler begin to exhibit the conventionalization that you speak
of. You know, the sky is "up there" and has a sun in it, the ground is
"down there" and is green with grass etc. But even so, not "all"
children respond to this sort of conventionalization, but most do.
>
>
>>or, is there a clearcut boundary between personal style and
>>originality?
>
>
> [There are no clearcut boundaries in art's definitions, just one thing
> shading into another.]
>
>>consider this. there were negroes singing the blues. whiteys tried to
>>imitate the negroes but didn't have the voice, nor the rhythm, and
>>ended up producing bullshi* blues... but in the process they created
>>something new and valuable.
Wait a minute. Black blues artists didn't all crop up in a vacuum -
there was a whole discourse going on, and many imitated each other. But
my question is this: is it "imitation" at all if a non-black performs a
blues number, or is it just what it is, performance of a certain genre
of music."
>>
>>personal style--and some degree of originality--cannot be avoided. no
>>matter how much you try to paint like andrew wyeth or picasso, your
>>intrinsic abilities will force you to do things somewhat different.
>>no matter how much you try to play like eric clapton, b. b. king, or
>>eddie van halen, your brains/fingers/temperament will produce something
>>noticeably different.
>
To quote Lao Tzu, "the only constant is change."
>
> [I'm not sure that poor imitations count as originality, even if they look
> (or sound) somewhat different than the originals they emulate.]
>
>>we tend to distinguish between traditional art and modern art, but all
>>arts of course grow and change. the difference is modern art is much
>>more open to personal 'innovations', indeed has made willful
>>innovations the core of its philosophy. but, even in modern arts, what
>>you mainly have are artists imitating modern masters, and if something
>>new is achieved, it's almost accidental, a matter of personal style.
>>traditional arts tried to suppress or control personal deviance within
>>what was considered valid, but there were always some innovation and
>>they weren't so much willed as 'accidental'--cases of mutations arising
>>from intrinsic abilities of the artists.
>
>
> [Perhaps you're giving more weight than you should to "intrinsic abilities"
> and less than you might to artist's individual intentions. Certainly there
> is a lot of art, modern and otherwise, that's imitative in intent, which
> falls short due to lack of ability (intrinsic or not), but that's not
> usually considered as innovative as art that starts out trying to do
> something different in the first place.]
But don't you think at some point an artist needs to shit-can everything
and simply fall into his or her work? I'm just suggesting that at some
point everything should reduce to a self-sustaining universe - an artist
facing his or her demons and trudging through. It seems that too much
sensitivity about that abstract and ambiguous entity we call the "art
world" of "theory and criticism" or "what's the artist's role in
society" will only engender a self-conscious hesitancy that will errode
what you set out to do in the first place. Your own work, for example
(which I've always admired). My reading is that you are indeed playing
in your private universe that exists between you, your will, your
materials and so on. I don't see you "adjusting" your product to suit
an idea about what an artist should be or what society expects of you.
Andrew Werby
"Erik A. Mattila" <e...@nospamimpix.com> wrote in message
news:RsCdnTy4guJ...@adelphia.com...
> Andrew Werby wrote:
>
>> "herr blob" <cerebur...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1119810036.9...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>>to what extent is 'originality' in art really a matter of personal
>>>style? is originality merely a case of extreme personal style?
>>>is it a byproduct of failed imitation? something that accidentally
>>>results in a kind of unforseen mutation?
>>
>>
>> [I'd say originality (which you haven't defined) can result from
>> accidents, as well as conscious decisions, asking questions that haven't
>> been asked before, or the use of new technology, which can give new
>> answers to old questions, or offer solutions that previously weren't
>> available. Personal style is usually something that has to develop; it's
>> not an intrinsic thing. All very young children, given the same crayons
>> and newsprint, draw in more or less the same style; as they grow and
>> practice, try things out and absorb influences, their artistic
>> differences become evident.]
>
> This hasn't been my experience at all. I've looked at a lot of children's
> art over the years. What I've noticed is that there's much more variety
> and inventiveness among the pre-school children, and the grade schooler
> begin to exhibit the conventionalization that you speak of. You know, the
> sky is "up there" and has a sun in it, the ground is "down there" and is
> green with grass etc. But even so, not "all" children respond to this
> sort of conventionalization, but most do.
[You may be right; I haven't made a study of kid art. Most of what I've seen
tends to tread the well-worn path of house with smoking chimney, front-face
people with big heads, stick limbs and all fingers extended, sun on top and
rainbows. But this may be grade-school and not preschool art, which
admittedly tends to be more abstract, but - from what I've seen - shows more
resemblance to other works in the same genre than divergence from them.
Perhaps you can post something somewhere that shows the variety and
inventiveness you noticed.]
>>
>>
>>>or, is there a clearcut boundary between personal style and
>>>originality?
>>
>>
>> [There are no clearcut boundaries in art's definitions, just one thing
>> shading into another.]
>>
>>>consider this. there were negroes singing the blues. whiteys tried to
>>>imitate the negroes but didn't have the voice, nor the rhythm, and
>>>ended up producing bullshi* blues... but in the process they created
>>>something new and valuable.
>
> Wait a minute. Black blues artists didn't all crop up in a vacuum - there
> was a whole discourse going on, and many imitated each other. But my
> question is this: is it "imitation" at all if a non-black performs a
> blues number, or is it just what it is, performance of a certain genre of
> music."
[Yes, there's a certain assumption here that many white jazz and blues
musicians have had to deal with, that no matter how good they are, their
music can't be authentic because they're the wrong color. I don't see how
that helps anybody.]
[Thanks for the kind words about my art, but I don't see it that way. My
feeling is that I'm playing in the real universe, coming to terms with all
the beautiful stuff that's out there which other artists mostly ignore
because they're wrapped up in their own inner worlds. It's true I can't
relate too well to the "art world," where the theoretical issues du jour
(are we still stretching the wet paper bag we call Visual Art to include
even more things nobody thought to put in originally?) loom larger than
anything that matters to me.]
I don't see you "adjusting" your product to suit
> an idea about what an artist should be or what society expects of you.
[Actually, I have been adjusting my product, but not in that direction.
Improvements in technology have allowed me to extend the range of things
that are possible to do with the information contained in natural forms
(which is what I've mostly been concerned with) and I've been running to
catch up with the unfolding possibilities I'm glimpsing. There's certainly a
lot of pressure on artists to conform to society's expectations
(surprisingly, since artists are supposed to be so independent) but much as
I'd like to cut off my ear and get videotaped in a satyr suit, I just don't
have the time...]
Andrew Werby
www.unitedartworks.com