Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1905 (Heft 10))

which he himself, by the way, appropriated in part from Claude Lorraine.
The second order of general types of beauty are nature herself, either some
type of man or of landscape, as those landscapes which owe their interesting
character to the work that man has done on them for centuries and which
after endless changes have at last settled into a general type expressive of all
they have at different times been, and of those moods all men have
in common.
In addition to motifs, all forms of technique, no matter by whom dis-
covered or first practiced, are ours; so are also all applications of the natural
sciences — as of chemistry, physics, and mechanics—for if we could not
adopt the technique and mechanics of an art we would have to cease
practicing it altogether, for they are of as slow evolution as the themes
themselves.
I also claim that when we are in the student stage we should be allowed
to copy specialized types for the purpose of study—we do it anyway without
knowing it — for otherwise our progress will be slow. If only some form
of quotation-marks could be invented, then the student could put them
on the margin of his pictures to indicate that, although he had appropriated
from another, he was not attempting to give it out as his own.
Plagiarism in music rests on the same laws and conditions as in paint-
ing; the undisputed right and even necessity to adopt and build up upon
any primitive music of the land is acknowledged by all musical critics, an
amusing illustration being recently afforded by a well-known European
expressing his conviction that America would never produce a great school
of music until the songs of the negro were taken as a basis!
Architecture furnishes the interesting anomaly of being unplagiarizable-
that is, at least, to any great extent. Rarely do we hear of an architect having
plagiarized, not even when he has transplanted portions of the Acropolis to
Chicago, the reason being simply that architecture is in a more primitive
state than many of the other arts, dealing only in general types; and,
probably owing to the exigencies of its existence, will always remain in this
lower state of evolution.
A discussion on what constitutes plagiarism is bound to raise its cor-
ollary: “What constitutes originality ?” Unfortunately, an answer to
what is and what is not plagiarism does not tell us what originality is, and as
any scientific diagnosis would take too long to enter upon here, I will only
make the general statement, and this in answer to the numerous questions I
have myself asked regarding the true authorship of such paintings as are in
part or wholly executed by the pupils of a master, that they are the work
of the master in direct proportion to their power of inducing in us the
belief that they are. Roland Rood.

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