At this very moment an artist is going mad. He is slowly being crushed inside the encroaching walls of authenticity, originality, and marketability, beset by a triangular claustrophobia. Marketability though, is only the worry of the greedy and the starving, and so should be dispensed with as a dimension in the exploration of originality in art. The two remaining pressures upon the artist is authenticity, as in genuine and honest self-expression, and originality which can be defined for this purpose as “the creation of a piece of art which is self-contained and free of outside artistic influence.”
I find that in the mind of many artists there is an undue conflation between the concepts of authenticity and originality. One believes that if one is completely honest and authentic, then there’s bound to be some originality that takes shape in the art itself because who else but you could possibly express you? The Original Artist is not only a flat-out impossibility, but the desire to obtain a sense of complete originality in one’s work is born out of a delusion that one’s humanity is fundamentally different from the rest of the species.
The only Original Artist that might possibly exist is the first primate that decided to create something for any proto-conscious reason aside from sheer practicality. All artists, by sheer necessity, draw upon their clumsy wisdom. Even this creature was probably inspired by a vision of nature, and likely created something which mimicked the reality in which it lived. Originality in art is impossible the same way as, in architecture, one cannot say that a building is complete until it is standing on its own.
Occasionally I wonder about where the obsessive desire for originality comes from, and my conclusion is that it is born, not only out of delusion, but also out of fear. The fear of the fickle judgment of critics that both slander anything they’ve seen before as a “tired trope,” and yet also damn anything which breaks free of those chains as a “pretentious waste of time.” Although, while those fears do exist, I believe that they orbit a much denser fear in the heart of each artist. The ultimate fear of the artist, and perhaps wider society in the digital age, is discovering that they are no different than anyone else.
That omnipresent fear that they’ve let the pressures of civilization, their upbringing, or their various anxieties about judgment lay the concrete of their personalities. This is why The Original Artist chases that originality. He wishes to be special and is not ready for the potential oncoming realization that he isn’t. He might discover that even his hallucinations will be unoriginal and shaped by his environment. Even driving himself mad will not save him from pressures that he never had the opportunity in his infancy to resist.
A deep chasm of uneasiness and malaise will open beneath someone who finds out that their story is a tedious and monotonous one. After this realization dawns on him, The Original Artist develops themselves a crude fake form of authenticity. It generally comes in the form of superficial eccentricities such as outerwear, hair color, tattoos, and sometimes he dives further, drilling down into that fakeness and institutes a new set of laws and recently read hitherto socially forbidden philosophies upon himself. If you’re quiet, be loud. If you’re agreeable, argue. If you’re mean, be nice. Substituting the pressures of conformity with the pressures of a false persona (usually pathologically unconforming), because at the very least that is something he thought of himself. Instead of accepting his true more tame and structured nature, he lies so that he may be percieved as special and unconventional.
I would dare any serious scholar of literature to call Milton’s Paradise Lost or Dante’s Divine Comedy trashy and boring plagiarisms from the theology of Christianity. Great Art can be created off the back of other Great Art, and originality is not the Master Key of timeless works. Sure, it is possible for art to be “partly original,” but never completely because ultimately, art is the plagiarism of experience. It is impossible for one to be both authentic and original, because of the truth that everyone experiences similar things throughout the course of life. Pain, joy, contentment, rage, etc.
Authenticity, by definition, will not grant you originality. Originality will not grant you Greatness. Greatness only comes through a combination of Luck, Cunning, Talent, and Sweat. Plenty of Great Art isn’t original. Plenty of Original Art is shit. This should not be taken as a promotion of originality’s opposite, bland derivativeness, if not outright plagiarism. Struggling to be original is condemning oneself to the same fate as Narcissus, splashing at the surface of the water with gentle fingers, hoping that something new will emerge after the ripples end, and all is still once more.
This addresses I think every detail of my thoughts on the topic, while additionally having beautiful prose and distinct voice. I love this so much.