What Are The Rules About Recreating A Famous Work Of Art?
Inspired by the upcoming class where we’ll be teaching you how to paint, ’The Dream’, by Pablo Picasso, we did a deep dive into replicating artwork. We wondered exactly WHAT ARE the rules of creating a replicated painting from a famous artist and one of their well-known works of art…Was it cheating? Offensive? Wrong?
We found that not only is it acceptable for most (very old and very famous) artists and their acclaimed masterpieces, but encouraged...
This is how many artists feel and is the reason why so many of us look to other artists and things around us to start our ideas before branching out and adding our own touch to them.
Because we, here at Pinot’s Palette, have made it our job to help you make more art, we spend a lot of time gathering inspiration for paintings to create for you!
It’s a pretty fabulous task, actually. Whether it's listening to podcasts, reading, or looking at artists’ websites, there is so much to be shared about beauty, creativity, and soul-nourishing art-making. There’s no shortage of inspiration in life, and we're thrilled that we get to learn about it and then share it with you.
Gathering sources of inspiration is key to fueling an art practice, but you can’t just collect it. You have to do something with inspiration. You have to synthesize it, get it in your bones, and make it your own.
Throughout the 13 years, that Pinot’s Palette has been open, we have had incredible success with our famous artists-themed paintings, especially those of Van Gogh and Claude Monet. ((These are the first artists that we choose to add to our library of “original paintings”, and while the idea of them isn’t original, our take on them is!))
We change the colors, slightly alter the style, don’t include details, and even give them different titles. We have taken the idea of a painting that almost everyone has seen at some point in their life and given it a simplified version for our customers to paint and make a part of their homes.
Our guests like to paint something that they recognize as art, after years of seeing it and learning about it throughout their lives. They like to have that connection to the artwork in a new way… Not only recognizing it, but taking a brush and paint into their own hands and painting the lines that Van Gogh, Picasso, or other famous artists painted as well.
This is why the replication paintings that we offer ARE AMONG THE MOST LOVED and always THE MOST POPULAR, with seats filling up quickly!
BUT this is the grey area… The unasked question: Is it ok to take a famous work of art and recreate it?
We did a pretty deep dive into learning about original art and what it looks like (from a technical, moral, and legal standpoint) to replicate it!
Here are some of the tidbits of info that seem to be pretty unanimous across the board:
— No, it’s not illegal, you can copy other people’s art. However, it is illegal to present your work as being original. You should attribute your art as having been copied from another person’s work of art. On no account have you got permission to copy the signature. That’s a fraud, plain and simple.
— It all becomes murky when the copy is substantially similar to another artist’s work. Plagiarism is semi-legal.
— Ultimately only the law courts can determine the degree that you can appropriate other people’s imagery. Andy Warhol got away with it and it made him millions.
— It also becomes complicated should you want to sell your painting of a painting. A single private sale can be acceptable, that’s an ethical issue, but what if you painted the same picture over and over again? That’s a legal one.
— There is a danger that your paintings could undermine the value of the original work you’ve copied and in such cases, the original artist could theoretically, claim damages against you.
— Copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the creator at which point it enters the public domain.
— Having no watermark or copyright symbol does not make the image open-source. All artists retain the rights to their own work… But as we found, if the artist has been deceased for more than 70 years, their artwork is fair game (unless the copyrights are sold, which on most major artwork that we have known and seen all of our lives like that of Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, and so on, isn’t the case.)
FOR EXAMPLE:
Let’s use the famous ‘Starry Night’ Painting by Vincent Van Gogh as an example (the 2nd most-replicated painting, after ‘The Mona Lisa’)
Although the painting itself is not copyrighted, you cannot create an exact replica or a perfect photograph of the painting and use it for commercial purposes. If you are looking to use a picture or image of the painting for personal or non-commercial purposes, then you are free to do so.
Other Examples of famous work:
** Mona Lisa is in the public domain and free to be exploited, explaining its reproduction on everything from postcards to coffee mugs, with no legal repercussions. Artistic replicas and reinterpretations as a whole – demonstrating adequate modification – are considered new works eligible for copyright protection.
** Monet's beautiful landscape and portrait paintings including his famous water lilies, haystacks, and Rouen Cathedral series images can be used for free under the CC0 license.
((**And these are just some of the many many examples you will find with similar legalities and freedoms))
You’ve seen Van Gogh’s Starry night in its original form, a modern take of it,
Starry Night: https://www....y-night-1889/
Starry Night In Legos: https://idea...-a49859fa7755
A Starry Wars Night: https://www....y-wars-night/
Starry Night Starry Day: https://www....riginal-print
5 Contemporary Takes On ’Starry Night’: https://www....starry-night/
AND SO ON, AND SO ON…..
The list is really endless of artists who have created this timeless masterpiece in other ways. It truly has no end, as artists are creating/re-creating this artwork every day, all over the world in one form or another.
Now, here’s what’s important from a paint and sip company like Pinot’s Palette’s point of view….
We offer classes for first-time artists (really, anyone can join but we’ve found the HUGE majority of our guests are first-time painters), and the classes are limited to a 2-3 hour start-finish time (usually 2 hours).
With all of the constraints of the novice + time limits, (Plus, we want people to have fun making art... not stress over it being too hard), we will ALWAYS simplify every painting that we do so our guests are able to create it.
This means (as we mentioned before) that our replications of famous artwork will never even come close to capturing all of the details such as pattern and texture, as well as the color shades as the original artwork that we are pulling from.
See, we’re using these amazing artists as inspiration, drawing so much from their beloved masterpieces, but still making it our own… Still teaching our customers how to make it THEIR OWN, just as artists have been doing since the beginning of time.
*** JOIN US TO PAINT SOME FAMOUS ART REPLICATIONS:
4/13th ’The Dream’
Inspired by Picasso's 'Le Reve', this painting depicts a lone female figure in a state of rest. What could she be dreaming about?
https://www..../event/600093
4/18 Starry Night Sunflowers
Lighted Wine Bottle Painting!
Brighten up your space with this sunflower wine bottle bursting with beauty!
https://www..../event/600768
4/24 Monet’s Water Lilies
Claude Monet is one of the most popular of all the impressionist painters and for good reason! His water lily paintings are quite a sight to see in person and are also really fun to paint. Paint your own Monet with this serene scene.
https://www..../event/600775
4/29 Starry Night Lake View
Starry nights over the lake can be just what you needed to re-energize and relax.
https://www..../event/600780