6 - Emily Lau - Originality in Art

The above piece titled Blue II is part of a series of three by Joan Miro. Joan Miro is certainly one of the most celebrated artists of his time and his work has been considered an emblem of Surrealism. Miro, himself, declared that he was disgusted with conventional painting and famously declared in an interview that he favored "an assassination of painting" altogether. To me, what is most memorable about Miro, however, has nothing to do with the artist himself, but the comment my high school Spanish teacher made about his work.

As part of our Spanish class, we spent some time studying various Spanish artists including Miro. One day, she mentioned that she couldn't understand the importance of Miro's work as her son could have produced a similar, if not more aesthetically pleasing, piece when he was in Kindergarten. After all, the paintings were really a conglomeration of dots, lines, and shapes. Her comment has made me think about what originality in art really means. Perhaps, my Spanish teacher's son could, in fact, do the "same thing" that Miro had done, maybe "better" (however that is defined). Many of Miro's paintings have very simple composition and are perhaps not difficult to reproduce technically. However, this begs the question: what value do his paintings have that a kindergarten student's doodling does not have? (Interestingly, kindergarten students can all doodle, but parents place value on their child's work despite the reproducibility of their child's work. They too value the original piece.)

I think that art serves many purposes, one of which is to express an idea. Perhaps, then the value of Miro's art lies in his intent. His paintings were carefully mastered and were representations of his desire to upend the conventional and traditional practices of painting. I believe that it is what the painting conveys that is so important and so unique to Miro's work. However, I have often thought: if another artist, with the same intent as Miro, attempted to paint similar pieces as Blue II - would that be good art? In other words, was it necessary for Miro to be the pioneer, the first in his field to attempt to produce paintings like Blue II, that makes him a great artist? Essentially, does that mean that idea has already been taken and others who have similar ideas would be mere copy cats? I'm not sure, but I think that there is something special about being the first to introduce an idea to the world. In that sense, the piece of work is not only inherently original (as it is physically an original piece of artwork), but the idea behind the artwork is also original.