What Defines an Artist?

posted by kathy on Mon 2 Feb 2009

Last night at my art group after showing my piece to the group someone mentioned that my fiber art piece looked like another famous art quilter’s work.  I had no idea how this other art quilter was so it took me by surprise because I felt my piece was very unique. Sure enough, after looking at that artist’s website, I realized that our art used very similar techniques.

How is this possible?

One of my favorite books, Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light (P.S.) by Leonard Shlain, discusses how this is possible.  There are very few true revolutionaries in any medium. A revolutionary is someone who can step completely outside their envionmental influences to create something that has never been done before.

Take, for example, Giotto di Bondone (1276-1337).  Giotto is the first recorded artist to paint in perspective (three-dimensionally with a vanishing point). Up until that point, all known artists painted in two-dimensions (flat with no vanishing point). Physicists and mathematicians did not even invent the ability to graphically plot 3-dimensional space until the 1360s — well after Giotto died!

Within just a few decades, almost all artists has incorporated the concept of three-dimensional work into their art.  These artists “derived” from Giotto’s revolutionary discovery and incorporated it, into their own unique style.

This derivation of the influences happening around us is not something that we should be ashamed of as artists.  By adapting techniques created by others we advance our medium collectively.  We derive, make it our own, then influence others.  It’s highly probable that this “other famous artist” and I both were influenced by similar experiences and thus our work looks similar but not “the same”.

At first I was put off by the comment comparing myself to another artist. And then I realized – if my influences where similar to that other artists, then I’m proud to say that I’m taking risks and advancing my art. I know I’ll never be a true “revolutionary” like Giotto, but I do create some pretty great art!

Check out Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light (P.S.) by Leonard Shlain if you want to read about the true revolutionaries in art throughout history. It’s a great read.