Alfred Malmros

The ever ongoing debate in all fields of creativity about originality, an object’s worth if it bears resemblance of something else or whether something actually is a copy of something else or not, is one of the most tiresome debates I know, simply because it’s always just the same arguments being poorly dissected and countered every time it’s revived. Is it good even though it’s not original? Is it possible that the artist/designer/movie director had never seen the thing it reminds us of? Does its function change? Is it even relevant? Is it only jealous people who cares etc. And always, some happy go lucky idiot throws in the famous Picasso quote, with the hope that it will end all debates once and for all simply because it is a quote from Picasso.

“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

Like all the best aphorisms no one really knows what it means, and that means that if you can make it sound like you know what it means, then you will have an advantage over your opponent because he will hopefully feel stupid. But let us try to understand the quote from the context where it’s used. Great artists steals ideas from other fields, from nature, from friends and what not and they use their genius to make it better, different, to contextulize and give it a different meaning etc. Nota bene, this implies that they’re not being caught doing it. A good thief per definition is the thief who gets away with it. But the most important aspect here, which I’m so troubled with it, is the belief that stealing makes you a great artist and that copying will make you a good artist. In the contexts where people quote the great painter (that for all I know didn’t get caught stealing) people have certainly got caught, that’s why the debate has originated in the first place and this makes the quote irrelevant and obsolete.

Stealing does not make you a great artist.