EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Thanks for the review… Much appreciated.
David Barsalou MFA

Not at all. Thank you for the invaluable archive of Lichtenstein sources you’ve developed. Good job.

Simon

Lichtenstein was OBVIOUSLY a plagiarist and no amount of pseudo-intellectual babble justification excuses it.

There’s a difference between plagiarizing and transforming. All art transforms; plagiarism does not.

How exactly is illustration different from art? You say “Comic-book illustrators are not artists. Their image depicts a scene (even though fictional) of something taking place in the outside world.” Does that mean photography and cinema don’t count either?

“Their style is rigorously conventional and legible by all. It copies a story.” What does that say about the Renaissance painters whose main or only subjects were biblical scenes? I guess that puts them below this lofty title of Artist as well. Sucks to be you, Caravaggio!

The article says that Lichtenstein’s goal was to “search contemporary comic-strips for illustrations that he could change in seemingly small ways to embed elements of his (and art’s and mankind’s) core philosophy.” If Lichtenstein says anything about the philosophy of art and mankind, it must be that we’re a pack of remorseless thieves with no scruples to speak of because it sure says it about him.

My answer to your question which is very apt is that true art, unlike illustration, is never a reproduction of the exterior world or of a story but an image inside the artist’s own mind, often an imaginative depiction of the work’s own creation. At first sight, it does not look that way (for instance, Lichtenstein appears to just copy a comic book) but on long contemplation one begins to see intentional errors and repetitive forms in the apparent reproduction. Those lead to a composition of entirely different meaning, almost always poetic and usually united with that of other artists’. There is a wisdom shared by hundreds of great minds from different traditions (Plato, Christ, Buddha, Dante, Shakespeare, Mohammed, Einstein etc etc) that expresses what the wise understand about our existence. Other people then twist their teaching for their own ends. Christ’s actual words, for example, are not what religions teach. They are twisted to support the Church which did not even exist when Christ lived. If you look at how EPPH explains some of Rembrandt’s biblical scenes or Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine Chapel you’ll see what I mean. In illustration there is no such wisdom. I hope that helps.

“...true art, unlike illustration, is never a reproduction of the exterior world.”

If a piece of comic book art exists in the “exterior world”, and is reproduced (by, say, Lichtenstein), then it peforce and according to your own definition, cannot be true art.  Much less original.  When doing variations, no matter how extensive, composers always at least acknowledge the original composer.

Semantics.  Take a novel and change 2% of the words, try to sell it, and see how far you get with your defense.  Take a movie and reproduce it shot for shot except for 2% and see how successful you are defending it in court from the studio that made the original.  Painting a sculpture blue does not make it original.  Changing two lyrics in a song does not make it original. 

Blatant theft is blatant theft, which only emphasizes the lack of talent on the part of the thief.

Roy’s work away from comic strips is a yawn. He hit a motherlode when he found those images - great perception - but Roys work away from comic strips is a yawn….

The ‘illustrators’ are the real artists. Period. Selling plagiarized copies of someone else’s work for millions of dollars while showcased in all the most prestigious museums does not validate Lichtenstein as an artist. It quite clearly shows him to be a total hack. Why couldn’t he make create his own original scenes? It’s because he lacked genuine imagination. His work steals from the raw emotions the original works invoke. How arrogant to elevate Lichtenstein above a true honest hardworking artist. True value is not measured in money. It’s measured by genuineness. Something Lichtenstein never had.

Lichtenstein seems to generate raw emotions too, in those that dislike him! He’s not a great artist, I grant you, and I fully understand your point-of-view. I, too, felt like that for a very long time. However, according to the definition of art that EPPH uses, art must convey philosophy, the perennial wisdom of the ages. Lichtenstein’s work does that if you know how to look at it; the illustrations he uses as source material don’t. Illustrators tell stories very well but they are not philosophers. Besides, reason and logic are the hallmarks of philosophy, of Lichtenstein’s work and of art in general, not emotions.

I just realized it might help if I explained the image above and why they are totally different. The original needs no or little explanation. In Roy’s version, the flames create the caricatural illusion of his own face in profile, looking to the left, with his very long and pointed nose. His “eye” is a black mark just below the right-hand upright of the ‘M’. Once you know that, you realize that the explosion is taking place inside his own “head”. Those flames and the burning plane are quite different to the original. The plane also forms a “face”. It now has a large engine-opening as a screaming mouth with one cyclopean eye (the cockpit), the inner eye of imagination, just above it. Although it seems like disaster, it is in the inverted terms of perennial philosophy and art what spiritual people most aspire to, a fusion (through this cataclysm of fire) with the universe and all that’s in it.

The other plane, cropped at the edge, is the like the artist himself in the studio and as we are in everyday life: full of ego. That’s why the engine grill is formed into a series of four ‘L’s for Lichtenstein which, by the way, means “light stone” or “light in stone” in German. Our artist, Light Stone, hurls his stones of light towards the incoming aircraft which, in fact, represents both the “picture” he is creating and the spiritual state he would like to transform himself into. The disintegrating enemy is himself, becoming at one with the universe. Most of us live in darkness, consumed by our daily struggles and physical desires. To help overcome them, we should join the artist in imagining another possibility, a enlightened spiritual state of mind in which there is no artist and painting, no subject and object, no ‘you’ and ‘me’ because love binds us all. To do that, we must destroy the ego. After all, the two planes though on opposite sides look alike. They are really the same. The artist as one “plane” paints himself as another, a metaphor which probably also includes a pun on the meaning of “plane”. We need to move to the higher one.

If you think Russ Heath’s work, just to give one example, was some kind of inartistic slavish copy of reality you are capable of believing anything. This is really about class snobbery - Lichtenstein is “one of us” and can be excused theft; those he stole from deserve no redress, no recognition because they are not part of your inbred little world. That’s all.

Lichtenstein’s work is fantastic, but he is still a plagiarist. I appreciate that it exists, however any observer can see that it was traced or copied from the original comic art. (yes, with alterations). “His” art is wonderful, but these sorts of compositions could have been created from scratch, or drawn using models.

Also woth noting, the “Decronstructing Roy Lichtenstein” Flickr is ruined by some of the ugliest watermarks imaginable appearing on every single image.

“Comic-book illustrators are NOT artists”

Bullshit. You just lost your entire argument with that one sentence. Pretentious fuck. Comics are art and Lichtenstein was an art thief, plain and simple.