Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/25/roger-dean-designs-and-paints.html
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Went online to see if Jon Anderson was back in the fold. Apparently not, but I did find this priceless bit of trivia on Wikipedia.
His [Anderson’s] goddaughter was Ariane Forster, better known as Ari Up, lead singer of the Slits.
So, this means Jon Anderson is somehow related to John Lydon right?
Unfortunately the sound quality really lost this for me.
I still think he should have won his lawsuit against Disney and Avatar for copywrite theft.
Not for me, 'cos I never got that far. It’s a shame, but it’s all on Facebook, apparently. Guess what?
#DELETEFACEBOOK
I came here to post exactly that clip! Our greatest living artist.
I generally agree, although I do think the example of the horse-like creature running is a bit tenuous:
Dean’s work:
Cameron’s work:
So superficially they look practically identical. However I think the judege makes a good point (quoting from the article):
since Dean’s work is a painting and therefore static, and Avatar ’s is a motion picture, and therefore fluid, one cannot be substantially similar to the other. 15 “[T]he fact that the “Hallelujah Mountains” appear in ‘a wholly dissimilar and dynamic medium, in which camera angles, lighting, and focus are changing’ rapidly, [citation omitted] no reasonable jury could find that Defendants’ and Plaintiffs’ works are substantially similar.” 16
If Cameron’s image were a painting then absolutely, slam dunk. But it’s not - it’s a still from a motion picture. Advance frame by frame and eventually you will get an image of a horse-like creature galloping through a forest with a rider on its back and it’s legs just so, and in my mind it is the particular configuration of the legs which really drives the resonance. Does that mean Cameron copied Dean here? Well, maybe - the angle of advance and framing is similar, especially when the still from the movie is lifted from it’s context. But it’s also reasonable to argue - I think - that both artists looked at how horses actually run and created a good representation of that.
Disclosure: not a fan of Cameron. Am a fan of Yes. My sympathies lie with Dean in the overall case, but not in this particular example.
I don‘t think they do at all: different colors, postures, heads, tails, hoofs vs. claws, one is jumping, the other charging. One appears to be more horse like, the other more carnivore-like. Apparently at home in entirely different climate zones.
And of course horse-like creatures are a dime a dozen in Sc-Fi and fantasy stories, and given we read from left to right, I bet there‘s another couple of illustration where the creature would be in the lower right half of the picture facing outwards.
IDK, all these pictures in the article are things you will find in several - sometimes countless - other contemporary works, from computer games (Myst and Bastion, to give you two examples) to movies and series, to paintings and illustrations. There were many artist practicing 70ies fantasy art, they were inspired by many things, and many of them inspired other works.
Am I interested in watching this? Certainly, at least once the audio quality isn’t aggravating anymore.
Am I interested enough in watching this to make me go on Facebook for the first time in over five years? Take a guess.
I watched through the BB post, I am not signed up for Facebook so deleting it is not a problem.
They are also here in high quality
https://www.rogerdean.com/interviews/
ADDED
@SqualusAcanthias
See link above for excellent image quality.
I think that you’re highlighting the difference between the way the judge looked at the case, and the way the author of the article looked at it. I think there are dangers in both standing too close to close to the subject, and stand to far from it.
Stand too close and you focus too much on the incidental details - different bark on the tree, different colour pallet, different aspect ratio, etc - which clearly mark the images as incomparably different.^
Stand too far back - it’s a picture, of things, using colours - and everything is clearly derivative.^
If said I painted a picture of a river, you might say “Good for you. Good use of your lockdown.” If I said I painted a picture of a river on a sunny day, with some trees, and people enjoying picnics, you might say “Ok …?” But if I said I said I painted a picture of a river on a sunny day, with some trees, and people enjoying a picnic, using pontilism as a technique, would you say “Meh, you just copied Seurat”? ^^
^ deliberate exaggeration to emphasise the point.
^^ trick question: I can’t paint to save myself.
Not quite. The author says Cameron took inspiration from Dean, the judge says he merely borrowed Dean’s style, I say there’s so much prior art Cameron might habe been inspired from, let’s not be confused because prog rock fans only know about Dean.
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