Make Your Own!

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There seems to be a divide between some philosophers of Art and those who argue from the point of view of the artist. The philosophers see absolutely nothing at all wrong with altering a work to make it aesthetically better; the artists (or those who argue from that point of view) disagree. And this may come down what precisely we mean by "altering a work of art."

There are two species of alterations: one of which is always objectionable, the other of which is the traditional way in which art grows--the way which present copyright law is trying to squeeze off entirely.

One form of alteration is to take an extant work and make a change to it. This is objectionable on a number of grounds:

(1) It misrepresents the view and the work of the original.
(2) It argues that alteration to make a bad work mediocre is a laudable act--thus propagating the endless galleries of Thomas Kinkade art with which every mall seems to be burdened.
(3) It is hubristic--pretending to know with some certain what objective artistic merit is. I've seen Zippy throw the term around and then actively support the burning of all Picassos; I've come to suspect that he has no better idea than I do of what this objectivity looks like.
(4) It is lazy.

Which leads to the second form of alteration--derivation, parody, and satire, [added later] or attributed alteration of a copy of the work--most traditional means of altering extant works. When one thinks one can do better, this is the path to take. One doesn't tinker with the poems of Robert Frost seeking to improve them, one writes ones own poems in the same vein, on the same theme, or even in parody of or homage to Frost.

This is the means by which art progresses. Most of our modern works are derived in some way. They are written as a response to, from the wealth of, or as adaptations of great works of the past. I think of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres which can be seen as an adaptation of Lear. I think of G.B. Shaw's Dark Lady of Sonnets in which he fights his lifelong battle with Shakespeare with some considerable venom. How many Romeo and Juliets have there been (itself a derivative work from Arthur Brooke's 1562 The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, which in turn derives from earlier sources, and ultimately from Greek Mythology--Pyramus and Thisbe.

The right and proper work of the artist is this continual modification of tradition and addition to it. Hemingway is quoted as saying that "Mediocre artists borrow; great artists steal." Which is to mean that they take the work entire and make it their own. In this sense, the greater crime might be borrowing, in which we change this word, or that line, or this little scene and then pass on silently, having altered the work to our satisfaction.

At Disputations, Tom brings up the notorious "sash-painting" across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, only recently restored to the right and proper vision of Michelangelo. This form of debasement of art is what one supports when one says that arbitrary changes may be made to improve the aesthetics of the piece.

The reality is that there are vanishingly few people who have the standing to make judgments about the aesthetic value or objective artistic merit of any given piece, and most of those are who they think they are. It's a catch 22 in my experience, if you believe you are qualified then you are most certainly not--a point M. Night Shaymalin makes along the way in Lady in the Water. If you think you have the right to change a work that will be presented to the public, you should rethink--you don't.

I stand opposed to the alteration in any way of a received work. If you don't like it the way it stands, don't participate in it. If you think you could do the same better--do so. Just don't alter what has become public property. And public property is not individual property but the right and due of all the people. No one person has the right to change this heritage in the first way. Every person has the right, and if endowed with the skill, the responsibility to change or contribute to this heritage in the second way.

If you can make a more moral, upright, or proper film do so. Don't change the one I'm watching. If you can make a poem better, then do so--set yours alongside the original and show me the improvement. I have yet to read an altered, bowdlerized, or expurgated version of any work that made a substantial improvement to the aesthetics whatever it may have done to the morality.

If you feel the urge to change someone's work, cowboy up and make your own. Don't tinker. Don't play at artist--you demean art and the artist with such playacting. And don't be tiresome and pretend you have some bead on the truth that will vastly improve a given work. Prove it to me--write your own. Jane Austen took on the melodramatic and overwrought Gothic genre to produce the magisterial Northanger Abbey and made a contribution far more profound than legions of gothic novelists. (However, she did not surpass Anne Radcliffe whose work she sought to parody. Ms. Radcliffe's work stands and beside it the parody that is almost a tribute. In a sense we have Ms. Radcliffe to thank for one of the finest novels in English--if only indirectly.)

So, hands off. Let what enters the public square live or die on its own.

And now the second part of part II. Copyright law. Our present copyright law seeks to keep everything out of public domain for approximately 150 years, at this point. With the next renewal that time will extend. Applying that to the past, we would not have been able to make films or derivative works of things like A Christmas Carol or Tess of the D'urbervilles until a few years ago. Yes, there's always the possibility of licensing the work, but what is the writing struggling with keeping food on the table to do when the very clay with which he or she works is locked up, just within sight. The modern copyright law is a travesty--a mockery of law, and a mockery of the purpose for which copyright became the rule. The most recent Supreme Court ruling on it, in every way a deliberate and conscious misreading of the intent and purpose as outlined in the Constitution itself. It is clear from precedent up until the 20th century that there was absolutely no intention of an artist holding copyright for 90 years after his or her death. And, as I said, with the lobbies and the free grant of the Courts, this is only like to be extended. This does wholesale damage to the common good, removing from the sphere of play thousands and thousands of works. I think of what might have happened had Jane Eyre not entered the public domain--we might never have seen Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. The examples are countless. Congress has, for the interests of megaconglomerate businesses removed the right and proper heritage of art from the people, and we stand by and let it happen--unconcerned because so erudite a matter has no real meaning for us. (Okay, end this month's diatribe on copyright law--sorry).

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7 Comments

There seems to be a divide between some philosophers of Art and those who work in the field.

Is it possible that what you really wanted to write was "between some people who think they know about art and those who do know"?

As it happens, I have worked in the field of short fiction (a man's got to know his limitations; mine's 6,500 words), plus the window box of doggerel; I even once spit a watermellon seed into the hothouse of work-for-hire nonfiction. But I'm a "for the fun of it" writer, not a "can't not write" writer, so I'm not sure you would consider my writing art.

As for the four grounds you list for objecting to changing an extant work:

(1) It doesn't misrepresent the view and the work of the original unless it's represented as the original.
(2) It argues that improving a work can be laudable; you're the one making categorical claims on this matter.
(3) It is no more necessarily hubristic to change a work than to insist the one who would change it doesn't know what he's doing.
(4) Changing an extant work is not categorically lazy, nor when it is lazy is it categorically bad.

No one person has the right to change this heritage in the first way.

Starting from this principle, I see only two ways forward: You adhere to it in all things, which would be nuts; or you adhere to it in special cases, which amounts to special pleading for your own personal tastes (and some might call that hubristic).

It would be nuts to adhere to it in all things, because you would not be allowed to do such things as crop a photograph to fit a frame, skip the opening credits of a movie you own on DVD, or add a room to your house.

To end on a happier note, I agree with you about copyright law.

Dear Tom,

Is it possible that what you really wanted to write was "between some people who think they know about art and those who do know"?

In fact, no. I'm sorry I slighted you. In the heat of writing, and admittedly some great passion about the subject I have not properly said what I wish to. So, please accept my apologies.

(1) It doesn't misrepresent the view and the work of the original unless it's represented as the original.

And this is my sticking point at all times. I can agree with you; however, if you paint sashes over Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and that information is lost to subsequent generations--you have altered the work.

(2) It argues that improving a work can be laudable; you're the one making categorical claims on this matter.

Categorically, it cannot be laudable if the change is atrributed to the originator.

Notice how the second half of this post addresses these arguments, and I think I have been responding to something that you simply haven't qualified well enough in your arguments. I will say that it is always and everywhere wrong to alter a work without acknowledgment of the alteration. I will do further--if your's is the sole copy of a work not created for and commissioned by you, it is always wrong to alter this original, thus depriving humanity of the original statement. It can be licit to alter copies of this work so long as it is properly noted that changes have been made. So, in this sense, it may have been licit for Pope Julian (or whoever did it) to place the sashes on Michelangelo's figures as it was a commissioned work. It would be wrong for Mussolini to have done so, or for Joe Brown to do so ON THE ORIGINAL. If Joe Brown wants to put a copy on his ceiling and put sashes on the figures, that is Joe Brown's privilege.

My categorical rejection is the alteration of an original. I'm even uneasy about saying that the one who commissions the work has the right to do so, but it would seem to me that is certainly a legal right.

So, for the record, I am against the alteration of any original work. I am not against the alteration of copies of the work--they are copies. Duchamp, when he made his "Mona Lisa" painted a mustache on the copy--not on the original. Now, I look upon this as a piece of juvenile game-playing; however, he did no damage to DaVinci's original and only revealed his own aesthetics or lack thereof. This constitutes, in my mind, the creation of a new work.

The alteration of any copy of a work is, in fact, the creation of a new work and should be acknowledged as such.

So, now, I think I can entertain your arguments if we can grant two points: Unattributed alteration of an original work of art is always and everywhere wrong as a misrepresentation; and, more generally, alteration of an original work of art not that is part of the common heritage is also wrong EVEN IF attributed because it has stolen something from the common heritage.

With these caveats, I am satisfied that your points are valid. I just want to avoid the very dangerous argument that the Taliban had the "right" to destroy the giant Buddha's as their alteration of a work that distressed them spiritually and aesthetically.

I will note however, that such alterations fall into the realm of what I would say is the creation of a new work because the original is not destroyed in the process.

shalom,

Steven

So, now, I think I can entertain your arguments if we can grant two points: Unattributed alteration of an original work of art is always and everywhere wrong as a misrepresentation; and, more generally, alteration of an original work of art not that is part of the common heritage is also wrong EVEN IF attributed because it has stolen something from the common heritage.

Okay.

Dear Tom,

Given that, we have been arguing at cross purposes, because those are really my only two concerns. Everything else falls under the realm of "creating derivitive art."

Thank you for being so gracious as to continue to read and respond.

shalom,

Steven

The modern copyright law is a travesty--a mockery of law, and a mockery of the purpose for which copyright became the rule.

And, not to point fingers, it's your neighbor with the big ears who is primarily to blame for this.

Dear Brandon,

Oh yes, I know it! It's one of those things that just drives me out of what little mind I have left.

shalom,

Steven

Agreed. And I think that your concept of "common heritage" comes down to a question of property rights: who owns the property? Almost to the extent that the copyright laws also violate the property rights of Joe Public, by not allowing a work to enter into the "common heritage".

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on July 26, 2006 8:59 AM.

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