Creation, copy and crime

SOMETIME ago, my friend Cosy Amar sent me a link to the monthly e-magazine of the Toastmasters. (Toastmasters International is an educational organisation devoted to personal development and effective communication). The front cover of this month’s issue reads: ‘Are you a copyright criminal?’ I have been uneasy about using the term ‘criminal’ in relation to copyright infringement. It sounds rather harsh.

However, my experience this last week changed my mind. I was in the artistic Italian city of Florence. One of the must-see sights in this beautiful city is the masterpiece Renaissance marble sculpture, ‘David’, by Michelangelo. As we were lining up to enter the Galleria dell’Accademia (Florence) where the statue is housed, I could hear a man in the queue complaining. “Aw, this queue is too long,” moaned the whinger. I could relate to his impatience. It was estimated that from the point where we were standing, it would take at least 45 minutes to reach the entrance.

“I am out of here. Anyway you can see one for free at the Piazza Signoria.” With that he was off.

The statue which we put ourselves into so much trouble to see is the 5.17-metre marble statue of the Biblical hero David by that Italian genius, Michelangelo. The man was right that the Galleria is not the only place one can view the statue of David. There is a full-sized exact replica of this masterpiece at the city square, Piazza Signoria, and another one made of bronze stands in a park named after the great artist.

In fact, replicas of different materials – plaster, imitation marble, fibreglass and others – of Michelangelo’s David can be found around the world. A cynic might be tempted to say, “So what’s the big deal with the sculpture when any artist worth his salt can produce an exact copy?” It may appear that the cynic might be right – the statue I saw at the Florence city square looks exactly the same as the original in Galleria dell’Accademia and they don’t even bother to name the artist who made the copy.

Perhaps I should relate to the cynic the story about Christopher Columbus. According to the story, the great explorer was dining with some Spanish nobles when one of them decided to take him down a peg or two and said: “Sir Christopher, even if your Lordship had not discovered the Indies, there would have been, here in Spain which is a country abundant with great men knowledgeable in cosmography and literature, one who would have started a similar adventure with the same result.” Columbus did not respond to these words but asked for a whole egg to be brought to him. He placed it on the table and challenged their Lordships to try to stand it on its end. They all tried without success and when the egg returned to Columbus, he tapped it gently on the table breaking it slightly and, with this, the egg stood on its end.

“Oh, that’s easy to do,” noted one of the noblemen and proceeded to perform the feat.

“Yes, indeed,” said the great man quietly, “once a feat has been done, anyone knows how to do it.”

I cannot attest to the veracity of this story but there is a monument to the discovery of America by Columbus in the shape of an egg in Sant Antoni de Portmany, Ibiza, Spain.

So, how do we judge the genius of Michelangelo? I submit that it is not merely by the beauty of the finished product but also by the fact that he was able to see the final form in the formless marble block, a block that had been abandoned in a churchyard for over a quarter of a century. That final form that Michelangelo created is of such exquisite beauty that Giorgio Vasari was moved to say that once one had seen the sculpture of David by Michelangelo there was no need to see other sculptures. Giorgio Vasaris was no mug; he was a famed painter, architect and art historian of the Renaissance period.

Now, having read about the difficulty that Michelangelo faced in trying to create an art piece out of a seven-ton block; how Agostino di Duccio, the first person to be given the commission gave up on the attempt and how easy it is for the subsequent artists and craftsmen to make a copy, I am more appreciative of the injustice of the theft of someone’s idea. Creation is indeed hard, while copy is relatively easy. To steal the glory and to gain benefit from someone else’s hard work is indeed a crime.