What is original art

Georgiegirl wrote

on 11 Jan 2010 10:00 PM

About 5-7 of us have formed a figure drawing group.  We hire a model once a week and share the cost.  I am the proctor and pose the model and time the poses.  We have no instruction and do not have a critique.  It is definitely not a workshop.  Out art league president says the paintings we create are not originals since we are all painting the same model and I am setting the poses.  She will not accept our paintings as entries in our art league shows because they are not original art.    Our figure painting group disagrees.  We feel the model is in effect the same as a landscape.  We are all painting from a different perspective.  We feel this is not different from a group of plein air painters painting in the same location.  We do get a release from the model to show and reproduce the images we create.

Karyn wrote

on 12 Jan 2010 7:31 AM

I have to disagree with the art league president.  If I took her stance literally, then anyone painting a room, a city or a the same person wouldn't be creating original art.  For that matter, any photograph of the same thing isn't original art.  Maybe she has a unique definition of original, expecting that each piece must be unique from other pieces in the show or gallery.  Maybe its just semantics for her and what she means is that each piece must have different subject matter, painted in a different locale or with a different intent. . . . truly unique.

I think your painting group is creating original art, with every artist giving their own interpretation to the piece they are doing.  There is nothing more original, to me, that a new painting.  A new piece of canvas in itself is original as soon as the artist touches it.  

Paul Sullivan wrote

on 12 Jan 2010 9:38 AM

The artists in your group are producing original artwork. Work produced by an artist while working with a group of  other artists without an instructor is considered original artwork. If the group was under the supervision and/or guidance of an instructor, the work is usually not considered original art. This is the way most watercolor societies and juried exhibitions define "original art",  as applied to work produced while working in a group.

www.paulsullivanstudio.com

judyl40 wrote

on 12 Jan 2010 11:04 AM

I'm in agreement with everybody here. Your group is definitely creating original art, & your analogy of the model as landscape is quite apt. Everyone not only has a different view of the model, but will ultimately have their own style of seeing, drawing, & expressing it.

I say, instead of battling the art league, go around it. Form one yourselves, as your own group. Nobody has a monopoly on art, or on art exhibitions. You can always have an exhibition on your own.

Sharon Repple wrote

on 12 Jan 2010 11:19 AM

I agree with Karyn and Paul that your work is an original even though you are using the same subject.  Plein air groups are a great example. Without an instructor, you are on your own.  I understand your president's concern since I have had first hand experience with instructors who can't show you what they want without painting on your canvas.  The first time it happened to me I was appalled and never felt like the painting was my own.

I noticed that you said that your group does not have a critique.  Does this mean that every painting that I receive a critique on in our Member Gallery or Critique Forum and adjust my painting according to some of their suggestions would make my painting not an original.  Good topic!

Thanks Sharon 

Antonin2 wrote

on 12 Jan 2010 3:21 PM

Monet and Renoir have painted a lot of the same scene together and at the same time like la grenoulliere. They obviously created original art works. I think that the same with a model.

I feel the pain for your group that you need stand her attitude.

Robin11 wrote

on 12 Jan 2010 4:17 PM

Sharon, some societies would consider your making changes suggested by an online critique as "collaboration".  I know the colored pencil society of America considers it to be. 

 I've seen work on other sites that was coached from vague idea to composition, to color suggestions ("now layer it with "pumpkin orange") complete with the piece photoshopped with the coach's "fixes" until it looked like something that "coach"  would have done.  Which is probably where these kinds of rules come from.

I guess the line has to be drawn somewhere (pun intended? ).  I'd be very careful about posting pieces for crit that you intend to enter into competition.

CJ Rider wrote

on 12 Jan 2010 6:32 PM

From my experiences, anything that is a group effort where someone is setting the pose or selecting the view or setting up the lighting, the still life,  etc. - or you are able to look over someone's shoulder who is painting the same project could potentially be in question for contests. Whether it happens indoors or out.

Even if you don't talk but are all working off of the same subject matter-  you can see how someone else is handling a similar situation, you can see color schemes, lighting, and all types of other painting pointers that may not  have come to mind in a solitary painting experience.  Also the pose is not original to each artist-  meaning each artist did not seat and direct the model into a pose thought up by them and similarly with the lighting. It is similar to someone else setting up a great still-life and lighting,  and the group paints from it. In my experiences, these instances are not considered original to the artist and cannot be entered into certain contests. 

 Maybe just saying no to any group effort is the easiest way to deal with all of the potential issues that group painting might stir up.

Most plein air artists isolate themselves from each other even if at the same location but this is not always the case - so you have to be careful in group settings if you intend to enter contests.

CJ

Paul Sullivan wrote

on 13 Jan 2010 9:28 AM

You are creating original art in your group as long as there is not a instructor involved or as long as one of the group members does not take on the role of instructor. It makes no sense to concern yourself with "what is original art" when half of the artists are projecting photos directly on to their working surface. What is original art? That's a good question when people keep painting virtually the same picture over and over. Personally, I don't think the world needs another watercolor of colored glass. Your original question, as innocent as it was, may open a can of worms. 

Unless things have changed since I last checked, there are no art police. If your league president will not accept your work in the league exhibits, enter a different exhibition.  

www.paulsullivanstudio.com

judyl40 wrote

on 13 Jan 2010 10:19 AM

I belong to a group of artists who meet every Thursday night. We paint in a shared space, but each of us is working on our own work, from landscapes to figures to animals to abstracts. Of course there's interaction about our work, how we tried a new method, or paint, or medium, & we occasionally have an artist come in to give us a critique of our work.

Ultimately, it is the artist who chooses what & how to paint or draw.

I suppose you can only take all of this so far. I mean, what's the difference for some artists to listen to their gallery dealer on what subject matter or size to paint... or their dear Aunt Mabel to give her opinion on your work? There has always been artists who interact with each other, learning from others. I guess my point is, we're all influenced by our contemporaries, as well as every artist in the history of time.

redredpres wrote

on 22 Jan 2010 7:12 AM

I have to agree with something Paul brings up here. How can one consider these to not be original but potentially accept an artists work where they could have downloaded a photo from the internet, projected it onto their canvas (or media of choice) to draw the composition, created the painting using all the on-line resources available out there to figure out certain situations, and done all in the privacy of their own studio where nobody knows all this occurred? Which of these are original art? This is a tough one for one person to decide. 

Paint on...

RR

RKM wrote

on 22 Jan 2010 7:17 AM

I can see the president's position up to a point. After that point I would have to ask whether, in general that kind of thinking is too stilted, perhaps even anal. If a group of painters go out together and paint the same landscape..which of course was 'set up' by the creator...then Should we agree that none of the resulting works were 'original'?

You could go that far with it. But if you do, shouldn't you then say that no work created by the hand of woman or man is original. Should we not simply admit, as did wise King Solomon that, .."nay, there is nothing, nay nothing new under the sun....all is vanity and a striving after the wind?"

I say that the creator gave us all the creative potential but more than that gave us each an individual capacity for vision. So how does one participant in a classroom interpret the subject versus another? No two views are alike. Even if they were they would not be the same. Each artist, in an exercise or not, engages in the artist -subject relationship differently.

Then again, I chuckle to myself as I ponder what Rubens or Rembrandt would think of this conversation looking down on us from their lofty perches. Interesting topic though.

Bill McEntee wrote

on 22 Jan 2010 7:17 AM

This issue shows the ignorance of your art league president. Your understanding of the model being equivalent to a landscape is correct. 

If you rent the movie, "Art School Confidential," you will see similar mind-blistering stupidity. In the movie, the protagonist, visiting the home of a professor and looking at the prof's paintings of triangles, commented on the work. The professor answered (about paintings of triangles), "I was the first." 

Other than that, I don't have any strong feelings about it.

Lucy517 wrote

on 22 Jan 2010 7:22 AM

What a shame.  That seems to me unusually restrictive.  As Paul pointed out, you are correct in your understanding of the difference between working in a group as opposed to working in a classroom.  Although I would argue that even under those circumstances your work is original. I actually looked up the word original.

1 archaic : the source or cause from which something arises; specifically : originator
2 a : that from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made b : a work composed firsthand
3 a : a person of fresh initiative or inventive capacity b : a unique or eccentric person

Under the classroom restriction, works that I composed in the classroom and gave as gifts to friends would not be considered original?  I don't agree.

RKM wrote

on 22 Jan 2010 7:25 AM

Hahahaha! That's good! In the insane quest of 'originality' during the last century things got to the point where one 'artist' (you can imagine the sort) actually canned his own crap and dubbed it 'art sh*t'. We all need to move past that. To not do so is hubris. In other words crap!