Back in the day you had priests and philosophers and all sorts of other intellectuals – who were usually close to the ruling monarch – that helped shape what people of their time thought of as good or bad. With strong slogans like: “Pagans are bad.” “The king is great.” “Our culture is good, but the culture of our neighbouring country, well, not so much.” and many more, all inevitably leading to some form of action against the proclaimed bad and towards the perceived good.

And those who’s job it was to communicate such decisions were the creative elite, selected by the king or leading counsel to share the “right” and “just” views to all the peoples of the country. From church paintings to Stalins propagandists, their job was to transform wishes of the ruling class into an emotional and influential message that the peasants and proletariat could understand.
But in 2018, well, the idea of influence has been taken (or borrowed indefinitely) by companies, and as an interesting byproduct, they have taken the questions of morality along for the ride; just think about the important factors of today’s businesses for consumers, one of the first on the list on average is business ethics, not price or performance.

And now because of this change of influence from politician to business owner(s), I feel that we creatives are headed towards an interesting time. Now, it isn’t the government or the king and queen that have the greatest need for sharable or authoritative messages in form of sculptures, portraits, flyers …, but Google, Apple, Nike and Amazon. And all the millions of smaller companies of today. If in the past the creative could (or had to) serve or revolt against his or her government, now we are coming into a time where the people who rule do not need flags, insignias or speeches, but logos, corporate identities and copyrighting.

Many of us may be familiar wit the book Steal Like an Artist by written by Austin Kleon. In this book he describes how countless famous artists have been “stealing” other artists styles, ideas and just about anything else that they deemed valuable and used everything in their own work. But apart from a marketer’s standpoint, should this really be called stealing?

Copyright law is a complex topic that differs from country to country and I am neither a lawyer nor a Mike Ross (smart person with eidetic memory — for anyone, who doesn’t watch Suits), so I surely won’t be fooling myself or anyone by talking about it, but if anyone is interested The Future have a great video on creative copyright (focusing on the US but some things are the same everywhere), where they explore what we creatives can and shouldn’t do with other people’s work.

But I am more than willing and able to offer a sort of anecdote instead: In 2014 an artist know for his tendencies to “appropriate” the works of others (the guy who copied Marlboro’s Cowboy photographs and exhibited them as art), decided to take screenshots of other people’s Instagram accounts and go to town with them. And by town I mean have an exhibition at Gagosian called “New Portraits” and selling these works for around 100.00$ each.

He, of course, was then sued by several people and the lawsuit has been ongoing with a strong possibility that Prince will win his claim, namely that one doesn’t need to change a work of art to make it into a different work of art. One needs only change the context of said work of art and its meaning, message and value change because of it.

I must state beforehand I am a fan of his work intellectually speaking, and that I can’t say my views on what he does are by any means unbiased (though I do not condole stealing of any kind), and I wish to present them as objective as I can. What Richard Prince does is quite unique in the art world; he blatantly yet smartly plays with our understanding of what it means to own and to create a work of art. He is a strong supporter of breaking the status quo and probably (judging from his books) quite a bit of a nihilist deep down. But in the end, he does get one thing:

If I paint an apple tree painting and hang it inside a church or if I take the same painting and hang it on the wall of a cabin inside an orchard, I might have had the same work of art physically, but the entire meaning of this piece changes drastically when it is hung in one place or the other. It isn’t only the work that produces its meaning by itself, it’s the entire space (that’s why white cubes were so popular, and still are, because they take everything that isn’t the art piece away so that only the true meaning of each art piece is presented).

So while Richard may really be taking the literal images of other people’s works and showing them as his own, he technically isn’t stealing the physical objects. The only thing he is taking is the outer shell of the objects (or images) in question. And while I am not defending his actions, it is incredibly interesting where various types of artists see the line between stealing something and borrowing or transforming it (or appropriating as we artists like to soften up the word steal when writing essays).

If I take anything, physical or not (mp3 music and ebooks for example) and use it in the same way it was intended: the context of reading a bought book and a stolen book is roughly the same – both times I read it the same way with the same intent of reading it – the context of listening to a bought album of Metallica and a torrented one is roughly the same – both times I listen to it in the same way, again with the same intent of listening to the tunes.

But if I take the music of Metallica and play it over a humorous scene in a movie (not that anyone would), my intent changes and with it the message and function of let’s say Enter Sandman goes from communicating the scary movie feeling we know and love to creating a weird feeling of satire in combination with, lat’s say people getting pies in their faces. But can Metallica sue me if I used their song in such a way, even if I say that it’s made by Metallica? The music Industry said yes, but funny enough if I take a part of Harry Potter, and I mean word for word, and use it in my book, but I use the appropriate citation and change it’s meaning from telling a story about a wizard, to let’s say a book about peoples imagination, J. K. Rowling can’t sue me.

So while the music example is as clear as day to all of us, it becomes a bit more confusing when talking about books, and it gets even more when talking about Fine Art, yet the principles are the same. Some say you can’t steal other peoples work while others will tell you there is absolutely no stealing going on. But what’s your view on using other people’s work, is it something you do regularly or would you never brake the sacred vows of creative integrity?

At the age of 40, Sir Winston Churchill found himself at a career low: After the World War I attack he ordered on Gallipoli, Turkey, went horrifically awry, he was demoted from his role as First Lord of the Admiralty in May 1915. He resigned from his government post and became an officer in the army. Deflated of power and consumed with anxiety, he took up an unexpected new hobby: painting.

“Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time,” Churchill would later write in the 1920s, in essays that would become a small book, Painting as a Pastime. The hobby became, for the great British statesman, a source of delight and a respite from the stress of his career. He would eventually create over 550 paintings, crediting the practice with helping him to hone his visual acuity, powers of observation, and memory. The pastime would flourish, and perhaps even aid him, as he furthered his career as a world-renowned writer, orator, and political leader.

Churchill first picked up a brush at the suggestion of his sister-in-law, Lady Gwendoline Bertie, who was also a painter. In Painting as a Pastime, he recalled his first artmaking attempt one day in the countryside. Intimidated by the blank canvas before him, he diffidently placed a pale blue daub of paint on its surface to begin the sky, and was soon interrupted by the arrival of Glasgow painter Sir John Lavery and his wife, Hazel. The latter exclaimed, “Painting! But what are you hesitating about?” She grabbed a brush and made “large, fierce strokes and slashes of blue on the absolutely cowering canvas.” With that, Churchill wrote, “I seized the largest brush and fell upon my victim with Berserk fury. I have never felt any awe of a canvas since.”

In the five decades that followed, Churchill was prolific, primarily focusing on landscapes and seascapes made en plein air. And despite his incessant claims that he was merely an amateur, he developed an admirable flair for the art.

“His approach was very simple: Go outside and paint what you see,” Duncan Sandys, Churchill’s great-grandson, told Artsy. “He did it for fun; he didn’t take his paintings very seriously.”
Churchill was most fond of oils, for their forgiving, flexible nature and bright colors—as well as the joy they exuded. “Just to paint is great fun,” he wrote. “The colours are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out.”

He was known to set up his easel outdoors to capture the grounds of his country home in Kent, called Chartwell. (Now owned by the National Trust and open to visitors today, it still houses Churchill’s preserved painting studio.) The politician-painter would also work during his travels to Egypt, Italy, Morocco, and the south of France, among other locations.

While a proclivity for outdoor subjects prevailed, he also tried his hand at still lifes and portraits, with varying degrees of success. Churchill’s works read as somewhat intimate snapshots, illustrating his favored travel destinations, holidays, and family members. On the whole, his subjects appear decidedly positive, communicating the pleasure he got out of depicting them.
Churchill was largely self-taught, and adamant that formal art lessons were a young person’s game. The thing he and his like-minded amateur peers needed most, he believed, was a certain kind of passion.

“We cannot aspire to masterpiece,” he wrote. “We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint-box. And for this Audacity is the only ticket.”

Nevertheless, he was keen to improve his technique, and did so by taking cues from leading artists. He admired the work of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters like Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, and Henri Matisse, and was even known to travel to the same locations where they had painted years before, seeking out the light and land that had proven inspirational.

We have all heard of the fantastic prices some pieces of art fetch at auction especially when created by some famous painter like Monet or Salvador Dali

The style of these two painters are polar opposite, however they have one very important thing in common – they both were the originators of a particular style of art.

Way back in 1860 Claude Monet was one of the first artists to paint in the “Impressionist” style, he was quickly joined by other artists who formed their own society to exhibit their artwork after being rejected by the traditional French salons, who deemed it too controversial to exhibit.

Today “Surrealism” paintings and digital art are extremely popular but did you know it was all started by Salvador Dali back in the 1920’s with some very controversial work that shocked the art world.

Just imagine if you had the good fortune and vision to buy an original painting from those artists. They both developed a new style of art that later went on to inspire other artists and art collectors world wide.

I am sure you would agree that would have been a fabulous investment.

There is an opportunity to do exactly that.

You may or may not have heard of “Prism-Equus” it is a new style of art that has been added to the urban dictionary. This unique way of painting horses was developed by artist Linda Finstad.

The definition of “Prism-Equus” is equine personality depicted in colour. The style and definition along with acknowledgment of her work has made Linda Finstad the founder of a new style of art. A style that is quickly gaining popularity and one which she is teaching to other budding artists.

A quick google images search will reveal exactly what “Prism-Equus” looks like. This style may not appeal to you or fit with your decor. The same was probably said of Pablo Picasso’s work in those early days. However when you have the opportunity to buy original art from the founder of an art movement that has to be an investment worth making. An investment that could make you rich.

If you hear a cat hissing, spitting or growling, stay away, as that indicates it is frightened or angry and might react in an aggressive manner if you get too close.