In “The Ecstasy of Influence” by Jonathan Letham, he discusses the fine line between “inspiration” and “plagiarism”. He argues that drawing inspiration from other art sources makes art thrive. And we should not consider this kind of borrowing ideas from other works as a kind of “plagiarism”. Provided with sufficient examples, Letham further explains that it is also related to a person’s ability to reference and citations.
I agree with Letham. I think art is built on what we have achieved before. Art is born from observations of the world, knowledge of all fields, and understanding of life. Whether it’s by observing the world, or other artists’ work, the artist could both draw inspiration. And there’s no essential difference between the two. By analyzing and borrowing ideas from previous work, the artist gets to elaborate on that and have a deeper or different perspective of the subject. It’s because of this that art flourishes.
I could recall one time I heard a musician talking about his inspirations of making music. He gave an example of one song in his new album. He said that this song was wrote when he was listening to Pink Floyd. He felt strongly connected when listening to “Breathe” by Pink Floyd and he then wrote a song about this. Similarly, in the modern art age, a famous singer and song-writer Halsey used Justin Timberlake’s 2002 hit “Cry Me a River”‘ lyrics in her latest hit “Without Me”, and she later admits that she was inspired by this song and she just felt that Without Me has a Cry Me a River vibe. Drawing inspirations from other people’s work is very common and I do think with proper citations and references, it should not be called “plagiarism”.