Picasso once said:
"Good artists copy, great artists steal."
Well, people said he said that. But he didn't. It all probably comes down to T.S. Eliot saying "Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal." And all the nonsense followed from there. Misattributions, reworkings, and a distorted entry into the cultural lexicon.
How do I know all this? I stole it from an article I read on the Internet. I hope Ian Shank was right about all this. But if one can't trust Ian Shank who can one trust?
Who, you ask, is Ian Shank?
Mr. Ian Shank
a poem
Mr. Ian Shank
Strode across the hills and broke them,
Rode across the hills and broke them--
The barren New England hills--
Riding to hounds
Over the cow-pasture
Mr. Ian Shank smoked
And danced all the modern dances;
And his aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,
But they knew that it was modern.
Upon the glazen shelves kept watch
Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,
The army of unalterable law.
Good artists copy, great artist steal, but some of us, unnoticed, just finally stepped outside of the Pantheon,
and under so few eyes, start to feel the curious freedom of doing anything, absolutely anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.
I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!
One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.