Connectivity

Notions of originality- Art is something that when first produced is someones first idea.  It seems fresh, new and this piece of work is the original. but then 20 or even a couple of hundred years later this original work has been copied, not in the exact same way but with a slight twist to convey the same message but through a small change maybe for advertising or just for fun to recycle the idea. Like the famous Andy Warhol image of Marilyn Monroe done in popart. This is such an influential image as it is known all through the world and in my life I must have seen about a billion copies of not just the same Marilyn but also Kate Moss or even Michael Jackson etc.. done in this way. I believe the idea of copying an original is a must have in the advertising world. I know from my experience that when I see an advert in a magazine that resembles an old, famous image, the advert instantly communicates to me as I look for the hidden message even if it's comic or a serious type.I find it interesting how even from a painting, 21st century artists can reproduce the image as a photograph in magazines such as Vogue to advertise the clothing. Sometimes the old painting can just trigger an idea for the new artist, for example 'Cottingley Faries' by Elsie Wright gave the idea for Matt Collieshaw's series 'Catching Faries'. The two images are not exact but the new idea bounces off the old one. Even documentational photography bases itself on old pictures for example,Jeff Wall- 'Dead troops don't talk' has a resembulance to Goya's 'Disaster of war' from the 1820's showing the effect of a devastating war. Without the original, the best advertising campaigns of this century would never have existed. I don't think of it as stealing an idea but more of manipulating it for a different purpose aswell as complimenting the original artist.