“Don’t copy the reference.”
It’s advice that nearly every student artist has heard. Teachers warn against relying too heavily on other artists, classmates worry that using references makes their art “less original,” and rubrics often reward originality above all else. And yet, that very standard is discouraging creativity rather than fostering it.
At its core, art has long been valued as a means of individual expression. That said, there is nothing wrong with striving to create something new; the problem arises when originality is treated as creating something entirely isolated from the work that came before it. In practice, that standard often becomes a limitation rather than a guide to creativity.
Creativity is often imagined as producing ideas from nowhere. At first glance, this sounds straightforward, but in actuality, research on creativity reveals a much more nuanced picture. Psychologist Robert Keith Sawyer argues that “successful creativity never comes from a single idea. It always comes from many ideas in combination, whether we recognize them or not.”
Historically, artists have created new work by adapting, borrowing from, and responding to former traditions. Innovation has rarely emerged from isolation; in fact, many of the most famous pieces of media today are created by absorbing and synthesizing influences into a new interpretation.
Take, for example, George Lucas’ “Star Wars” franchise, whose many inspirations include Frank Herbert’s “Dune,” Akira Kurosawa’s films, and many others. Take “The Lion King,” which producer Don Hahn drew heavily from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and various biblical character narratives. Take Pablo Picasso’s definitive cubism style, utilizing elements of traditional African and Oceanic art, as well as the work of French impressionist painter Paul Cézanne.
American author Austin Kleon states in his book, “Steal Like an Artist,” that “nothing is completely original.” Yet, society often celebrates artistic genius as though great creators invent ideas entirely on their own, neglecting the fact that history’s most celebrated artists built on the traditions that came before them. For most, originality is not spontaneous invention, but an evolutionary process. Every painter, writer, musician, and filmmaker begins by absorbing the works of their predecessors and internalizing them into a distinct voice. In Picasso’s own words, “good artists copy; great artists steal.”
The originality we preach about in classrooms should never have been about a creation ex nihilo, but about transforming what already exists into something unmistakably your own. That is finding a meaningful, productive voice. That is finding our true creativity.
Yet, it’s an important distinction to draw between this artistic “theft” and plagiarism. While the University of Oxford defines plagiarism as the presentation of “work or ideas from another source as your own,” this “theft” involves studying techniques, themes, or structures and transforming them. Similarly, none of this means that originality is unimportant. Audiences can recognize imitation just as quickly as they recognize innovation. The goal is not to reproduce another’s work but to transform it.
In the everyday arts classroom, we shouldn’t be striving for the standard of pure originality. Idolizing pure, often unattainable originality impedes the growth of young artists and the experimentation that naturally characterizes the artistic community. Denying influence in creativity means denying the cycle of artistic legacy, inspiration, and recontextualized creation that makes art so memorable and distinct — because, as poet and literary critic T.S. Eliot once wrote in his seminal 1919 essay, “no poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.”
That is how art has survived for centuries: by enduring, transforming, and reinventing itself through the imagination of countless artists.
