It really doesn’t matter where your ideas come from, says an IB visual arts teacher. What matters is what you do with them.
Andrew Vaughan is an IB teacher (IB Visual Arts and Theory of Knowledge) at an international school in the U.K. He also has taught at IB schools in Tanzania, Japan and Taiwan.
In a blog published this spring on the International Baccalaureate website, Vaughan riffs on the “origination of ideas” and how artists and scientists stand on the shoulders of giants.
Where do ideas come from?
By Andrew Vaughan
“Nothing is original. We create through experiment, struggle and learning from others.”
It’s actually as much a theory of knowledge (TOK) question as a visual arts one, like many of the deeper questions in life.
I could follow it up with some knowledge questions such as:
• To what extent is creativity informed by research?
• To what extent are ideas generated from external stimuli?
But talking about art. . . Does it even matter what the idea is? Good Ideas? Bad ideas? Ugly ideas? Does the ‘quality’ of your idea matter? Not really – in many cases it’s more about what you do with it!
Virtually anything can be starting point. It can be a vague idea about some issue that worries you – for example, social injustice or gender inequality. It could be a fairly random idea provoked by something as transient as a dream.
Some of my students are never short of these ‘one-off,’ they sprout them and announce them on an almost daily basis, “Hey, I’ve got a new idea, there’s a woman underwater/face in a fog/door in a forest/plant that’s half-human, couple kissing, angry-looking fat guy, etc.”
Everything needs a starting point. This could be an idea that has been percolating somewhere at the back of your mind for months, or it could be some weird incident that happened last night in a dream. Or something else.
In many ways, it doesn’t matter where your ideas come from. What matters is what you do with them.
‘The shoulders of giants’
Art does not exist in isolation. Alongside the media explorations, I will also point the student, in question, in the direction of artworks and artists who I think may have relevance and usefulness in this context. I think that a great starting point and doorway to more important ideas is what has gone before.
In 1676 Isaac Newton said: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
He is saying that we discover truth by building on previous discoveries.
Newton, of course, was a scientist – but artists also stand on the shoulders of giants.
Most art has links to earlier art
Tracey Emin’s Bed is an obvious and predictable descendent of Duchamp’s Fountain. Both are about an idea and neither artist actually made the artwork. Duchamp’s LHOOQ was obviously inspired by Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. “Ophelia” by Millais was inspired by the idea/image of Hamlet’s drowned lover (and of course Shakespeare’s play).
In the summer, I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, to see the “Botticelli Reimagined” exhibition. “Reimagined” refers to the connections that artists since Botticelli made with the art of Botticelli. It was a great exhibition, and it explored “the enduring impact of the Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli from the Pre-Raphaelites to today. Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is recognized as one of the greatest artists of all time. His celebrated images are firmly embedded in public consciousness and his influence permeates art, design, fashion and film.
In this sense those later artists, fashion designers and filmmakers, etc., “stood” on Botticelli’s shoulders, although these days we would use words like appropriation or homage.
Being inspired vs. ripping off
Always acknowledge all sources of influence!
It’s all very well saying that you are standing on the shoulders of Andy Warhol, Banksy or Tracy Emin, but of course you must also acknowledge their influence and impact. Otherwise you might be accused of plagiarism, stealing etc.
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Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.