Is it an Original ?!
“I could do that…!”.
How often have we or our friends/family wondered aloud when looking at a simple piece of art — a simple composition by Mark Rothko or a Picasso sketch?! A similar thought comes when we see a simple mobile game or an app turn into a billion-dollar business (think Angry Birds and WhatsApp).
Yes, they may be easy to execute/copy, but when nothing like them existed, were they equally easy to think of/imagine and create?
We are often surprised/shocked when a simply rendered painting commands an astounding multimillion-dollar price, while a painstakingly painted photo-realistic painting or a copy is sold for a fraction of that. Don’t be!
The secret lies in that “simple” painting or software being an original — creative interpretation and an original expression of the artist/entrepreneur/visionary’s creativity.
In art, capturing a subject “as-is” was useful and valued when photography did not exist. Art then, was often measured by how closely it came to depicting the real life subject, and was even a necessity as a historical “recording” of that era. Things changed with the invention and popularization of photography in the 19th century. It was no longer necessary to capture a person or a landscape as realistically as possible. The cameras could do that. It led to new art movements such as Impressionism and Expressionism, and the value dramatically to an artist’s own interpretation and visualization of the subject and/or their expression of the emotions they felt.
In art, music, or business, copying the original may only help learn or hone your technique/execution capabilities, but it will always remain a copy and will never be valued as much as the original creation.
So how does one create an original?! Get the answers/secrets to creating an original, and more…in the subsequent posts… and in the book 'Creativity Secrets'.
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CREATIVITY SECRETS
Learn more in the book ‘Creativity Secrets’: “CREATIVITY SECRETS: Creativity & Innovation Secrets for Design | Business | Art”, 2018, by Abhay Bhargava (Wharton grad, artist, entrepreneur). www.CreativitySecrets.net