Skip wrote:Greta wrote:I see no problem with people satisfying simple tastes with simple art. How different is the altered painting and its popularity in principle to Sesame Street featuring the The Muncha Lisa by Leonardo da Crunchy? Neither audience is likely to appreciate Monet, Monk or 'Trane.
None of that mitigates or justifies vandalism or plagiarism.
Simple tastes have plenty of original art made especially for them. Why do they need to destroy the art that was made for somebody else?
My bad. I was thinking that Veggie's bizarre example was a copy, not vandalisation. That's equivalent to knocking down an elegant heritage building and building a Burger King in its stead.
I was more focused on the the thread 's OP eg. "When black and white films were being colorized, there was controversy over it" and in that my comments stand, as with all (overtly) non-destructive copying, which seems dictatorial of taste. I'd personally love for formularised, mechanised, economically rationalised, over-compressed, derivative headache-inducing modern pop music on the radio but some people like it. I don't understand how some women buy synthetic print tops with ghastly designs but I can't ban that either. Nor why someone would tattoo or pierce their entire face.
In short, I could be accused of lacking respect, not believing in the sacredness of certain things. I used to but observing nature and humanity over the decades tells me that the most sacred people, things, ideas - all will be replaced, or at least built upon to the point of unrecognisability.
I remember the hysteria amongst jazz purists when Kenny G recorded over the top of Louis Armstrong's "It's a Wonderful World". There was talk of drawing moustaches on the Mona Lisa and so forth. In truth, the track was a commercial bit of fluff that Louis was contracted to sing - a far cry from his groundbreaking jazz work. Really, they just wanted to have a dig at Kenny because he was giving people the wrong idea about what jazz is. It didn't matter. To untrained ears Kenny improved on the tune and, ultimately, it did not change the original. It did not even impact on web or YouTube search rankings.
Generally, as with all "consumables", if you don't like it, try to avoid it.
Skip wrote:BTW, is music so different? I can't hear La Donna Mobile any more without thinking of the old roll-a-door ad.
Music can also be vandalized, plagiarized, bastardized, cheapened and debased.
Is any of that good?
If anything, it was an antidote to Dad's daily destruction of the piece in the shower
Not much anyone can do about that kind of vandalisation, bastardisation or cheapening without being dictatorial.
How about Stairway to Heaven. Great pop track, ruined by overexposure. These things happen. I generally would not bother about legislation or controls beyond copyright except where fake work is presented as original, eg. in Australia there are numerous "Aboriginal" paintings and objects that are made in Vietnam. Caveat emptor (plus there will soon be some legislation with prescribed penalties).
As regard ethics sans a legal solution,
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Greta wrote:Skip wrote:(Changing a stern, bearded medieval prophet to a puffy, characterless hermaphrodite is not an improvement, whatever the tourists think.)
I see no problem with people satisfying simple tastes with simple art. How different is the altered painting and its popularity in principle to Sesame Street featuring the The Muncha Lisa by Leonardo da Crunchy? Neither audience is likely to appreciate Monet, Monk or 'Trane.
BTW, is music so different? I can't hear La Donna Mobile any more without thinking of the old roll-a-door ad.
That's ridiculous. The original piece of music is always going to exist. If you mess with someone's painting it's ruined forever.
My mistake. I'm not talking talking about variant copies and prints. Obviously you don't allow people to vandalise originals.
As regards "improving on the original", not many complained about Jimi Hendrix's cover of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower of Jeff Buckley's rendition of Hallelujah, Joe Cocker's version of A Little Help from my Friends, and so on. Interestingly today most plaudits (certainly the most money amongst small timers) goes to those who perfectly copy the original (tribute bands), there is ever more focus on the skills of reproducing that which came before than on creative innovation. It's a brief that makes machine reproduction of material more viable.