ot long ago, a social media controversy erupted over an image rendered in the work of two artists – both graduates of miniature painting from the National College of Arts. The image in question depicted a view of the NCA printmaking workshop. The debate centred on who painted it first and who had copied it. Most of their peers recognised the painter who had replicated his classmate’s composition; however, the discussion, which lasted for months before eventually fizzling out, was not an uncommon one. Art discourse, both past and present, near and far, is filled with similar claims and accusations.

In reality, such proclamations and clarifications rarely hold much significance. In a fluid world, ideas, images, styles and trends travel from one corner of the globe to another and from one artist’s studio to the next. Often, these shifts are deliberate. On some occasions, they are unintentional and unplanned. In either case, recognition does not necessarily go to the one who first conceived a particular work, visual or artistic vocabulary, but rather to the person who develops it further, assimilating it into their aesthetic framework and personal history of image-making.

There are examples in history, not as remote as Renaissance Italy or Medieval India, but from Cubism. The paintings of Picasso and Braque from that period are so similar that one must decipher the artist’s signature to identify the actual creator. Neither Picasso nor Braque ever claimed to be the originator of cubism or expressed concern over the identical nature of each other’s canvases.

Similarly, in two mid-Twentieth-Century art movements – abstract expressionism and pop art – many artists worked in close contact, either exploring the essence of abstraction in search of the sublime or incorporating the visual language of advertising, industrial products, and consumer culture. No artist from abstract expressionism or pop art movements declared themselves the pioneer. Even though the term ‘pop art’ was coined in reference to Richard Hamilton’s 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? – featuring an athletic man holding a tennis racket with covers labelled ‘Pop’ – neither Hamilton nor his American counterparts ever specified which artist initiated this significant movement.

They were aware that an individual is not the sole creator of a work; rather, an entire milieu participates in shaping it. Imagine a visual artist or an author working alone on a deserted island, certain that their work will never be shared beyond the tiny, uninhabited territory. This certainty will ensure that the work does not become a great piece of art. Exchanges enrich a creative person’s ‘individuality’ and originality.

Another reason why the practitioners of cubism, abstract expressionism and pop art were not concerned about overlapping or copying was their understanding that an artist’s uniqueness is determined by their entire body of work rather than the invention of a specific piece, phase or practice. The American art critic Henry Geldzahler once asked Willem de Kooning why he was not worried about everyone painting in his style. De Kooning replied, “Because I am the only one who can also paint a bad de Kooning.”

If we compare the mainstream art world with our surroundings, we realise that the question of references, influences and imitations is raised more frequently here than in postmodern Europe or North America – or even in conventional societies such as pre-modern Europe, South Asia, the Far East, the Middle East, Africa and pre-Conquest America. In both ancient times and contemporary art, producing work of relevance, meaning and posterity has always been more important than emphasising originality.

It is surprising that in this age of exchange, reproduction and appropriation, some people still expend energy investigating the origins, links and references of other artists’ creations.

Inventors, not only in art but also in science and technology, are often forgotten – remembered only by students and job applicants preparing for examinations and interviews. The man who invented the radio is merely a historical footnote. How the device has been transformed and utilised by others, particularly by institutions of power and entertainment agencies matters more.

Ijaz-ul Hassan, in a lecture on Shakir Ali at the NCA, once defined artists as thieves, explaining that they take what they like, keep it and utilise it in the future. The same approach is evident in Jorge Luis Borges’ fiction, where the Argentine author crafts stories as if transcribed from existing tales or texts from other sources – Arab, Chinese and Japanese – particularly in his short story collection A Universal History of Infamy.

Shakespeare did not invent new plots but elaborated on narratives already penned by his predecessors. One could imagine that if publishing houses, galleries or social media had existed in his era, there would have been a flood of posts accusing him of copyright violations. Closer to home, the characters and episodes of Heer were not the creation of Waris Shah; rather, he rephrased and refined them in a poetic format so compelling that today we remember Damodar Gulati and other earlier versions of Heer primarily through the brilliance of Waris Shah’s poetry.

None of the authors of Nordic sagas, Danish tales or Punjabi romances can be called the original writers, as they drew on the collective tradition of storytelling and folklore. Their significance lies in how they uncovered new dimensions within age-old narratives. Similarly, an artist employing geometry in their work – studying Muslim classical art, Tantric painting, the Bauhaus school and Josef Albers’s Interaction of Colour – understands that basic geometric shapes, their interplay, overlapping and juxtaposition are not the property of a single artist, institution or tradition. Just as the use of pyramids, cubes, spheres or other elementary constructions cannot be attributed to one creative individual, these forms belong to a universal aesthetic that transcends cultures and eras.

The real challenge is not to identify the first person who conceived an idea but to understand how that idea was continuously developed into a more complex and sophisticated form. In our villages, no one cares who planted the seed; what matters is how the tree was nurtured and cultivated to flourish into a flowering, sheltering presence. This is because the person who initially sowed the seed was not the sole ‘creator’ of the tree – its life, sustenance and growth depended on numerous diverse, unseen and unknown factors.

Yet, we remain obsessed with tracing the origins of an artwork, especially when its roots are close to home. It is surprising that in this age of exchange, reproduction and appropriation, some people still expend energy investigating the origins, links and references of other artists’ creations. Perhaps they need to accept that art is, in many ways, a relay race – a collective effort – where those who succeed do so because of the contributions passed down at various stages. The creative interactions that span across time periods and cultures are difficult for a few rigid and inflexible minds to comprehend.

I recall a renowned art teacher, a master miniaturist, who, upon seeing the work of his colleagues – depicting the political climate of their time through symbols such as the shape of a dulled moon – would often remind them that he was the first to introduce the moon in miniature painting. His students, however, wondered whether the moon had been invented by him, his nephew or his neighbours, as miniature painting was traditionally a collective endeavour, created not by a single individual but by a group – confidently reinterpreting earlier examples and established formats.

The writer is an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore