Originality in Art and Architecture

Originality… If we say and assume it is there. Then yes, it is there. If we say it is not, then it is not. Everything that we create seems to be a copy of the blue-print that the Mother Nature has created for us over a good period of time. Perhaps.. using the good old Trial and Error method. It has taken her to evolve over billions of years to come up with these brilliant perfectly designed environments in which there is a coherent relation between all living and non-living things.

Like we do in Architecture, designing never stops. Maybe we learnt it from nature. We too keep developing upon the existing designs only to make it look a complete design.

But Mother Nature says – Designs are never complete. There is always one or the other free end, flying away, along the path of the wind, gloriously showcasing its ugly existence, in our perfect-complete-genuine-design, which later expects us to manipulate it intelligently and weave it seamlessly into the existing design. As the design grows, over a period of time, it turns itself into an equally complex and a very challenging task to tackle.Here,it shapes up into a strangely personal and impersonal piece of work, both at the same time.

Any original work of art is necessarily original. It is the first and last, one of its kind, in the order of its existence. Those creations have freshness and authority. If it lacks the depth and meaning that one searches in the work of art then it goes on to become a mere cheap-showy creation. Naturally it loses its charm. The charm that brings about the feeling of ever-greenness and timelessness.

A masterpiece is always a set of original ideas put together, like the characters in a novel. They behold our interests, evokes emotions, appears to be mysterious and engages the on-lookers for a long period of time often surprising them with unexpected rush of adrenaline just by looking or feeling that piece of art and architecture. They are intelligently, often strategically juxtaposed and the spaces are deliberately designed to seduce and sometimes designed to make us realize the existence of spirit and its religion-Spiritualism.

Creativity is  an extremely unpredictable part of our existence.Masterpieces also become sources of inspiration for others. Sometimes the Artists build upon the idea they have deduced from that piece of art and other times they simply carry-on weaving the story detaching the existing part mercilessly, depending upon the understanding and intellectual capabilities of the designer. No wonder Artists have variety of tastes- they are seen at movie screenings, plays, galleries, parks, sport centers, shopping malls, parties, gardening exhibitions doing what not.

No one knows from where you get an IDEA. An IDEA to create something – like the trigger of a gun,when pulled, hunts down the perfect prey that’ll create History. The IDEA. And everyone yearns for one to fall into their laps.

It is not only about designing or drawing something on a piece of paper, the true artist’s intentions and thoughts/insights are known to the audience only when he explains it to them, in his own words or actions.Of course there is also a talent of reading art and architecture, but it is limited only to the reader’s sphere of understanding. It is almost a psychic phenomenon to read the minds of the artists.

I have observed a lot of times – What’s there on our mind always/somehow melts down as an artwork. Not necessarily everyone should be an artist to do this. But it is a psychological way of relieving the pressure on the brain, by getting the dexterous hands to work on something. Some show it in their culinary skills, some express them through expressive arts or some plainly express it by the way they tap their foot. The expression is a continuous process like breathing oxygen. So when we do all these, originality is an undeniable fact. Often it is seen and observed that these type of accidents results in stunningly genuine creations that we fondly call as masterpieces.