Coincidental Compositions?

These images illustrate another part I find fascinating which is of compositions having very similar arrangements.  Here is a set I found that took me sometime to put together.  Although I think it is a coincidence it is debatable that one could have inspired by the other.  In 99% of all cases it's a painting being inspired by a photograph.

Inspired Photography? Art?

Since the Shepard Fairey Hope image is now part of the social consciousness and later the stories about the use of the Obama image directly from a photograph.  I think this illustrates when things can seem wrong or be wrong.  I don't really gravitate toward any of Fairey's images and I'm not one that cares much for the "rebellious" nature of street art.  I do think the problem lies in the fact that Fairey denied ever using the image I think at first anyways.  It became a question of money which ultimately is the problem.  Had it not be for that I think it wouldn't be a big deal that the image was used from a photograph, but the current laws and the possibilities of financial gain from someone else's work (vise versa) is to hard to pass up.

On another note I imagined the famous Obama pose could have been inspired by a John F. Kennedy image I ran across some time ago.

A cover to an art annual caught my eye when it came out because it reminded me of an artwork from another artist. I apologize for not knowing some artists in these posts. Sometimes you see something and it is uncredited and I will try to credit as many artists as I can. I also would like to be clear in the fact that I'm not trying to point out that anyone has done anything wrong. In fact I included a few of my own work as work that I was influenced by or inspired to create a work of art. I think it's part of the artistic development and also an awareness of images that we like so much we used in our own work. Sometimes it seems fine to do after the original artwork was created many many years ago and other times only a few years and now-a-days months or weeks or even days from the original inception.  It is even accepted in this blog called "Covered" which hosts images directly inspired by a comic or magazine cover.  I also want to point out that some of these images are also images that may not have been used as inspiration of a work of art or photograph, but l found similar in compositions. Some can happen altogether by coincidence. I have almost half a million stored images in my database from magazine scanning, my own photography and internet images. I find similar images all the time in my searches.  I am fascinated by it.  I think we like to compare and contrast things as humans and here I am collecting images that have in many ways similarities, but I think because of laws and being in a consumer society we tend to see these as bad because of their supposed lack of "originality". The truth is that we have been doing this since man have been on Earth. Fashion and consumerism thrives on us buying and looking similar. Without that their wouldn't be fashion or malls or magazines, but in the tight "mystical" community of the arts it is widely looked down upon like we are all living on an island and not in this image injected society.  Give me a break!

Here is one of my images inspired by the Coppertone image engraved in everyone's mind since you are a kid especially if you ever visited a store by a beach.  Also a character named Mandy by an artist whose work has been seen in Playboy, Dean Yeagle.  I have a few of his books.  

Inspired Art? 2

As stated in my last post these images are ones that captured my eye as something I remembered seeing.  In some cases the image is a very well known one and other ones it may simple be an image I think is similar in composition yet have nothing else in common and may have never had a direct connection with each other.  I have a pinterest that I started that collects these images.

http://pinterest.com/luisdiazart/similar-compositions-ideas-homages/

Here is an image by Ashley Wood and a photograph of Kate Moss.

Inspired Art?

I like to post things that look similar to each other.  I don't think it's a bad thing to work on things using elements from photos and other images, but I think you should give credit for it.  I think it's natural to work out things you like that you have seen from other artists.  Most artists were inspiredly "heavily" in the start of their careers.  Frazetta inspired hundreds and now probably thousands of artists, but who inspired him?  Of course he looked at and absorbed the artists that came before him like J. Allen St. John and N.C. Wyeth sometimes unknowingly to the artist themselves.  I've seen some artists just plain lie that they never have been inspired by certain artists even though it's so very apparent.  It's important to note some artists have a big ego and in their world they need everyone to revolve around them.  I think that is an immature approach to take, but what can you do?  The other problem is the las that state things about copyright infringement and I think we are living in an era of creative constraint.  In the generations and more ancient times copying or using other images as references was part of the evolution of the artist.  Other younger artist would work in the senior artist's "studio" to learn from.  That is why artist like Michealangelo and Raphael excelled.  Some of Leonardo's paintings are hard to see the difference between one of his pupils and his hand.  In a lot of cases several artist worked together on a piece.  It's important to see that it is important to use other art and photographs, but the evolution of an artist is that they need to go beyond that and those that do are the ones that get remembered.  Of course the importance of that notion is another subject of it's own.  I leave here a couple images I think were inspired by a Brom painting.