He also said "Art washes away from the soul the dust of every day life" but that one doesn't get very much attention, nor does anyone care to research it to see if it is attributable to someone else. Take it from me, Henri's wife ?

You could talk about how one of his major influences was African art and his artistic output is based in European colonial appropriation.

Ehhh, it's a fine line. I try to unintentionally come up with something that is "original", but that's almost impossible to do. You have to stay within a certain structure in music or else it just sounds "idiotic". We all have influences whether they come through in our work subconsciously or not. Everything has pretty much been done before with variants on what has been done.

If by "steal" he meant "adapt and make it your own", sure.

Nothing wrong in taking inspiration from other artists. I work in software; you can't copyright an expression of an idea in software, only the exact same code, and even then, there is occasionally only one or two ways to possibly do a particular thing. I'm sure the law applies in a similar way to artistic expression. You can't copy the Mona Lisa and sell it as the original, but you can certainly adapt ideas from it for painting new portraits.

I like the second part of that. I am an artist & I steal all sorts of ideas and bend and blend them to my own tune. I remember at art college our tutor said that he couldn't understand my work - and I loved that he said that.

In one of my final pieces I had a room full of collected items flashing lights and everything that was important to me - representing my Dissociative Identity Disorder. So he couldn't understand what me and eight alters wanted to portray and I understand that too as most people I come out to are afraid of what I may say or do or achieve when its out of their realm of understanding. And I have a feeling that that is the place where art is supreme - when it has to be a relationship of 'trying' to understand and d it doesnt really matter what the understanding is for the individual, because it s all understanding self.

Life is derivative.

Well, I like some of his stuff.
And, I think he'd have been a fun neighbor.
Kind of like Hunter S. Thompson.

Yes ! And being great, he stole a fair bit from African art ! (Still adore him, though!)

Yes...

Yes.

Absolutely!

It is the same in music. You take a little here, you take a little there, ad your own twist, your own feel, and develope your own style if your not strictly a copy band player.

I think Picasso was overrated.

I disagree.

Yes, they appropriate and breath new life into what they take. It is well known that Matisse and Picasso took what they wanted from each other, competing, praising, ignoring each other. Picasso said: “God is really another painter … like me.” He was probably thinking about Matisse.
Also Shakespeare took themes from other playwrights an made them into magnificent literature.

Great artists 'recontextualize'.

Avant garde, anything goes