What is the Marguerite Gauthier of Dumas but a modernized version of L'AbbŽ PrŽvost's Manon Lescaut? Did not Balzac in his Pre Goriot, TurgŽniev in his King Lear of the Steppes, and Zola in La Terre, make use of the same tragic theme as Shakespeare in King Lear? Is the story of the three rings in Lessing's Nathan der Weise not taken from Boccaccio's Decameron, which has served more writers with plots than any other book in the world's literature? And did Boccaccio himself not gather this collection of a hundred stories from every available source, often merely embellishing an old legend with the concise beauty of his style? Has it not been proven that Milton copied a large part of his Paradise Lost from the Dutch poet van den Vondel? And did not Shakespeare take whole passages from Plutarch, simply changing them into blank verse and inserting them, for instance, in his Antony and Cleopatra?
To transform history into art is surely not a sin. In all those cases mentioned, the artist has freely borrowed material from predecessors, but has at the same time understood how to imbue it with his own individuality and to lend it new vitality through the vibrations of his own soul.
That is re-creation, which is almost as admissible as originality, if the latter is possible, and not, as in most cases, merely a new combination of the work of previous generations. For no artist is so self-sufficient that he will shape his course unaffected by, and apart from, what has been done before. It is impossible to wipe one's mind entirely clear of what one has seen and read and heard in intercourse with other beings. Every work of art must necessarily bear influences of previous accomplishments.
We are heirs of the ages, but the heritage bequeathed to us should merely be the basic soil for future growth, and reveal itself unconsciously. Otherwise it becomes mere copyism, a danger into which many a young artist, through an absorption of all that is best in the past and present, has fallen. It should widen, not narrow, our sympathies. Symonds has well phrased it when he said, we modern men are in the need "of self-tillage, the ploughing and harrowing of self by use of what the ages have transmitted to us from the work of gifted minds."
It is logical for a young American comedy writer to imitate the so-called "paper chase" invented by Sardou, in which the losing of an object is used to tangle up all the characters, and thereby produce most unexpected and funny situations. But it is also offensive to our code of ethics if he slavishly reconstructs each situation with slight changes in the characters, perhaps merely Americanizing them, and yet gives out the result as his original work. Burglaries of this kind are committed often, and furnish ghastly examples of intellectual impotence and degeneracy.
But if a man remodels an original after a classic pattern, he may be accused of copyism, which however, is no serious reproach. To copy intelligently shows good taste and does not absolutely bar inspiration, invention, and creative power.
If Mrs. KŠsebier would only study the play of light and shade in the old masters to give a deeper artistic value to her photographs, I would heartily endorse her methods. But when she attempts an exact reproduction of a Holbein drawing, I consider it the most futile kind of art plagiarism. The same objection holds good if Mr. Eugene puts a man in mediaeval armor and lets him pose like one of the famous Innsbruck figures. What is the use of it? Every intelligent art lover would pronounce it at once an imitation and would surely rather possess an ordinary photograph of the original than a sort of reconstruction at second-hand.
Still more deplorable is the fact that so many photographers rely entirely on what they have seen of paintings and illustrations for the composition and arrangement of their subjects. They take a fancy to a picture, pose a model in the same or a similar way, photograph it, and think they have accomplished something wonderful. Of course the photographer has to go somewhere for inspiration, and nothing is more natural than his turning to pictorial art in search of ideas. But what satisfaction can there be in repeating in a new medium what has been done so much better in another?
The commercial spirit prevalent in all matters seems to have set aside almost all scruples about plagiarism and imitation. A well-known sculptor told me one day. "The easiest way to make a good monument is to copy one of the masterpieces of European sculpture, only to make it a little better." That is an absurdity, for a man who will descend to copying of that sort belongs to that class of thinkers whose thought crystallizes into what is known as art. Allow me to cite a few of the many cases of appropriation, or art plagiarism, that have come to my notice.
In art circles, for instance, it is generally known that the figures of a certain artist's stained glass windows can easily be found in illustrated books on medieval art, yet nobody accuses him of stealing, for the color of his windows is so wondrously beautiful that we forget all criticism. A pity only that he did not do it more cleverly, for the stealing of ideas that is not found out is not stealing to the idea of the world, but merely a matter that the artist has to fight out with his own conscience.
Yet there are cruder forms. If you are acquainted with Boldini's work you probably remember the portrait of a mondaine, who is seated in a nervous, almost grotesque attitude on the edge of a lounge. Now, I saw at one of the Philadelphia Academy exhibitions a picture by an American painter, given out as an original work, which represented the identical figure in the identical attitude, only the color scheme was changed. That was outright theft and should be legally punishable.
A similar case I witnessed in a New York studio, when I saw a picture by a well-known English painter reproduced in every detail, only in a smaller size. The artist had the audacity to ask me if I did not consider the composition original. I was dumbfounded and thought I might, after all, be mistaken. But no, there was the whole scene that I knew so well, as its simple composition had made a decided impression upon me.
In my wanderings through the studios I had opportunity to witness many queer proceedings, and I found the sculptors as guilty as the painters and illustrators. I pride myself on my knowledge of contemporary art, and the ability to trace adaptations and adeptations back to their original source, but from time to time I have come across cases of undeniable plagiarism which even puzzled me. Years ago I saw the painting of a female nude by a Frenchman, his name has escaped my memory, which immediately attracted my attention by the dignified and graceful recumbent pose. The same pose I saw later on, depicted by Clifford Grayson and by another American painter. Still greater was my astonishment when I saw a clay model by Sir Frederic Leighton, entitled "Iphigenia," of the very same subject. And to show that it has entered every branch of art, I may add that I recently saw it again in a photograph after the nude by Frank Eugene. Will anybody kindly tell me which of these gentlemen has the most claim to originating the pose? Is it mere coincidence, or did they all appropriate the Frenchman's idea? Or did they perhaps all use the same model, whose form was seen to the best advantage in this position, or is the pose itself so beautiful and natural that one after the other discovered it?
Another incident I experienced with Mr. Blashfield's "Angel With the Fiery Sword," one of his most forceful pictures. Looking over a French illustrated magazine, I discovered an initial letter, the design of which contained the same figure which I had admired so much in the painting. Now did Mr. Blashfield elaborate the designer's idea, or did the designer copy Mr. Blashfield's figure? In the first case it would be justified adaptation, in the second, rank stealing. In this case it would be difficult to make an accusation of borrowing, and it is a sad fact that very often accusations are made when there is no cause or evidence whatever.
Artistic photography offers such a case. Mr. Stieglitz exhibited his well-known "Net Mender" in Germany and was at once accused by several critics that he would never have thought of treating the subject if Liebermann had not painted it. Now Mr. Stieglitz states that although he is acquainted with Liebermann's work, he has never seen a painting resembling his "Net Mender" and that Liebermann's representation of Dutch fishing folk had never entered his mind. The critics consider it a foregone conclusion that if one of the two derived anything from the other it must necessarily have been the photographer. The general public is not yet sufficiently acquainted with artistic photography to know that it can rival other arts in originality and beauty. Much less do the artists realize this fact. They would unscrupulously make use of any photograph suitable to their line of work, and not for a moment consider it stealing, as to them photography is merely a helpmate, without any claim to artistic merit.
The similarity in this case is merely a matter of coincidence. Each in his respective medium has worked conscientiously to gain a certain effect, and both have accomplished it. But even if one of them were obliged for the idea to the other, it would be of no consequence. Both productions are works of art of a high type, and any indebtedness in this case would be owing to the creation of one masterpiece by the suggestion of another. And of that every artist is guilty.
Heine is right, borrow as much as you like. But be certain that you master the accumulations and accreted experiences of others to such an extent that they have become your own, only that you can rear on the understructure of precedent accomplishments still higher and more imposing monuments of beauty.
