art plagiarism

[meredith101]

Art is often 'inspired' or 'derived' from work by other artists. When is this actually just plagiarism? I refer to 'paintings' and 'sculpture'.

[jno]

'Plagiarism' is usually used only about writing, when one writer has taken chunks of text directly from another. Paintings and sculptures are usually just called copies, unless the painter is trying to pretend that they are the originals, in which case they're called fakes.

[jno]

oh, if you're asking about where to draw the line between inspiration and copying... well, hard to say really, it's a matter of personal taste; some people will think a painting is inspired, others will think it's just a lazy imitation. Things like this sometimes end up in court (there was that case against Dan Brown over the Da Vinci Code) and you never know what the result will be, it can depend entirely on the judge or jury.

[meredith101]

thanks jno