I can't believe Sam Leach is going to get away with pocketing $25,000 for blatantly copying this Baroque masterpiece . In fact even to say he stole it is to attribute too much credit to Sam Leach - he's left much of the real beauty out.
When you look at the two together, you are left feeling quite disheartened - like when a child is told there's no Father Christmas. That the prestigious Art Gallery of New South Wales can hand out a sum like $25 Big Ones to someone who copy-and-pasted the background of a 400-yr old Dutch masterpiece but left out the best bit is one thing; that he won a "Best Australian Landscape" award with a copied painting of an Italian Lake is quite another.
But he uses words like "referenced", "appropriated" and "homage" to euphemise it. All euphemisms for theft.Whatever he says about his motives/intentions, the fact that he didn't reference the original work betrays his deception I think. If he had, would he have won?
If this was writing, it would be plagiarism. If this was music, he'd be sued; as Men At Work were sued over the almost undetectable riff they accidentally "appropriated" from some ancient nursery rhyme.
In fact, the music industry has always struggled with the practice of "sampling" - but again, if you think of the way - for instance - The Orb's "Ever growing pulsating brain that rules from the centre of the ultraoworld" samples "Lovin' you" by Minnie Ripperton - it *adds* value, and - perhaps more importantly - is clearly referenced! Leach does neither.
Now movies reference other movies all the time - but the reference is made obvious to most, while admittedly missed by some. But the reference is not theft, it is designed to articulate something more profoundly because of the very reference. The difference being that the director, writers and producers will all be up front about that. Mr Leach didn't mention the obscure Dutch work and pocketed the money.
Apparently, according to The Herald, artistic copyright extends for the life of the artist and 70 years after. That means the poor Adam Pynacker's right to sue Mr Leach expired 267 years ago. But I agree with Tim Storrier - he should give half the money to Mr Pynacker's estate if he wants to hold his head high in the Art world again.
'What I see of it, it's not influenced by that Dutch painter - it's actually copied from him. So, from my point of view, it's a flicker of that rather odious post-modernist practice of appropriation, which essentially is theft. And I suppose if one really thinks about it, morally, the bugger should give half his prizemoney to the estate of the Dutch artist.''
It was apparently Picasso who said, "good artists copy; great artists steal." Leach clearly stole from Pynacker, and I think he's *not* a great artist anymore because of it.