“Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal”
What do Picasso, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Voltaire have in common?
In his short book Think Like An Artist… and lead a More Creative, Productive Life, art correspondent Will Gompertz posits that artists steal. It sounds scandalous- as if The Sun has penned a grand expose- but in fact, it is the artists themselves lining up to confess. Albert Einstein remarked: “Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”. Voltaire, two centuries earlier, stated that “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” The title of this article is an aphorism uttered by Picasso. What Picasso was saying is that before one emulates, he must imitate, and before someone appropriates a great idea, he must first copy that idea.
The sort of theft these men are talking about is not simply taking a concept and claiming it as your own. There are extra steps which qualify imitation as emulation. It involves taking something and filtering it through your own temperament- taking the Crown Jewels and making a necklace, or taking a car engine and making a motorbike. It is stealing in the sense that a cocktail uses pre-existing ingredients to make a new combination.
In his book Copywriting is… 30-or-so thoughts on thinking like a copywriter, Andrew Boulton references a novel, Less, by Andrew Sean Greer. In this book, the eponymous writer- Arthur Less- gives a lecture entitled “Read Like A Vampire, Write Like Frankenstein” which perfectly articulates what Picasso meant by the aphorism: “Good artist’s copy, great artist’s steal”. As Boulton comments, to be a better copywriter- or artist more generally- we must “suck the blood of great writing, (and) rearrange the body parts into something new and alive”.
It might seem a painfully obvious observation, but pure originality is an impossibility. We are a product of a million inspirations, and as such, are incapable of creation ex-nihilo. This does not mean we are incapable of originality however. Being original means filtering great work through your own temperament. In short, to be a better artist, which by nature means to innovate, we should all study our predecessors, take the elements that work and build a Frankenstein of diverse inspiration which is fresh, original and in keeping with the metaphor, alive.
The co founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, once stated that Apple “…have always been shameless about stealing great ideas”. One of the ideas’s he stole came from Picasso himself; The New York Times reported that Apple teach their minimalist design ethos to employees with reference to Picasso’s Le Taureau. In this lithograph, eleven plates show a Bull being gradually rendered to it’s essential “essence”. It is a design principle Jobs appropriated to create the now ubiquitous Apple products we all know and love.
As I hope this piece has shown, there is no shame in imitating great work. In fact, it was the main ingredient in the creative process of luminaries from the world of Science, Art, Literature and Tech. With this valuable knowledge, go forth and suck the blood of great work. The world is waiting for the next Frankenstein idea to change the game.
This article is the result of much stealing (inspiration) itself. In particular, I am heavily indebted to two books:
- Copywriting is… 30-or-so thoughts on thinking like a copywriter by Andrew Boulton
- Think Like An Artist… and lead a More Creative, Productive Life by Will Gompertz
