Are you ready for your mind to be blown?
Now that I’ve completely raised your expectations to a height of no return, it’s time to explore the world of art referencing. This world is full of many examples of modern pop culture, an art in it of itself, referencing past art. Movies, TV, and music all do it sometimes to an extent of plagiarism. Hinting to art pieces can help convey the messages that each medium seeks to represent. This leads to the important question of whether copying is okay if it’s in the name of art.
Stephen Colbert recently stepped down from his show The Colbert Report where he played an American conservative pundit who was obsessed with himself. When they designed the set, they kept in mind the character’s haughtiness and decided to exalt the character to a Jesus like stature.
From an artistic perspective, all of the lines in the set converge into the center where Colbert sits. This effect makes use of linear perspective, an art term that describes when the lines of a piece of art all meet at a focal point in the work. This set design decision helps convey Colbert’s egotistical view of himself, but is also reminiscent of The Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, in which Jesus is the focal point of the linear perspective.
Everything in this painting points at Jesus, from the windows to the walls to the hands. Colbert sought to emulate this saying, “If you look at the design it all points at my head. And even radial lines on the floor, and on my podium, and watermarks in the images behind me, and all the vertices, are right behind my head. So there’s a sort of sun-god burst quality about the set around me. And I love that. That’s status.”
This is a great example of a current artist using a previous artist’s work as inspiration and then changing it to reflect the current artist’s message. Lady Gaga also makes use of this concept in many of her music videos.
The magazine Out did an intense comparison of Gaga’s Applause video with various works of art.
The similarity between the music video and the original pieces of art is clear to anyone, but they are still just references. They allude to the art work but change it to better fit the message of the music video. The entire concept of replicating art to this extent also fits with the idea of the song which talks about the intense satisfaction that Gaga gets from entertaining her fans with her art.
Drake is another musician who has made use of past art work to influence his art. He is mainly influenced by artist Renee Magritte, as the below comparisons clearly acknowledge.
In this case, Drake uses Magritte as a jumping off point, but besides for the visual similarities, Drake’s art does not add to the message of Magritte’s work. While Magritte dealt with the dream state as the message behind his work, Drake tends to use Magritte’s work as inspiration in the purely visual sense.
Films also make use of art in many ways. Movies can reenact an artists life to educate audiences about who this person was. For instance, in the movie Pollock, Ed Harris plays the artist Jackson Pollock and is seen creating many of Pollock’s famous pieces throughout the movie.
In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a scene depicts Bueller and his friends at the Chicago Art Insitute. This scene is able to show the audience many pieces of artwork as a result of the storyline.
So far these examples from films merely enlighten audiences and encourage further research into the art they show.
However, films have also referenced art in a way that begins to look a lot more like copying. This article gives a thorough break down of Disney’s use of art in their animated films. Some examples show inspiration like in the film Prince of Egypt.
Other times, like in Frozen or Lilo and Stitch, it seems as if Disney is purely cartoonizing art pieces that already exist.
Are these references or is it more akin to copying?
There are copyright laws involved in using another artist’s work in music or film. However, there is a gray area when it comes to referencing a piece of art. In the examples throughout this post, we should ask ourselves if the artists of today are trying to pass off the art as their own or are they paying homage to the artists who have come before them. We are not lawyers who are tasked with suing these filmmakers and musicians, but we must look at popular culture with a critical eye. Next time you see something in a film or music video that is creative beyond belief, take the time to research its possible artistic influences.
Art: Then and Now 