"If you nail two things together that have never been nailed together before, some schmuck will buy it from ya." -
George CarlinLately I have been rethinking my stance on originality in the arts.
Especially since the turn of the twentieth century and the rise of modernism, so much emphasis has been placed on a creator’s originality.
Schoenberg’s atonal music,
Kandinsky’s abstract art,
Joyce’s stream of consciousness literature - all of them proclaimed as Great for doing something no one had done before. [Even though none of them was in fact the first to have done the thing, but that’s another story.]
Meanwhile, some creators are dismissed for looking too much like, or sounding too much like, so-and-so. By which they mean that the artist’s means of expression show clear influences. But what about the ideas they express using those means? What about the ways they please and communicate with the audience? Too often, originality is held up, not as an important value in art, but as the
only value.
Shakespeare is known for, among other things, coining new words in his writing, which became part of the language. Hard for a writer to get more original than that. But, by this way of thinking, does this mean that a writer who invents new words is necessarily writing better stories than someone who simply uses the language as they find it?
In my youth, I dismissed some comic artists for simply being clones of some better-known artist. I did this without paying attention to how well they used this stylistic language to tell a good story. I look back at their work now and see that I was missing out on a lot that was valuable in what they did, simply because it didn’t “look new”.
When jazz pianist
Jutta Hipp released her album
At the Hickory House, it was dismissed by many for “sounding exactly like
Horace Silver”. And yet, today, her album is a fave of mine, and I listen to it more often than any of Silver’s. Because I enjoy what she plays. It’s not like she has no ideas of her own, it’s not that every line she plays is a direct rip-off of something Silver played. She has a similar tone and touch, but she uses it to create music of her own. Which you need to get past the superficial similarities to appreciate.
So, I am finally reaching the stage where I can look at or listen to someone whose style is highly influenced, or even derivative, and not simply go, “They aren’t giving me an original style or technique.” Now, I ask, “What
are they giving me? Do I find anything worthwhile in this work?” Of course, originality still has some value in and of itself. A satisfying work that is expressed in a new and unique way can become even more satisfying because of that. But there are other things to consider, is all I’m saying.
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