My answer to that would be No. Why? because we are all influenced by many things over the course of our lifetimes. In order for us to create someting truly original we would need to grow up in complete isolation with no external influences. The closest thing to purely original art comes when we are little kids playing with paint and crayons, up until about the age of 3 or 4 probably.
After that we begin to take notice of what others are doing, or our parents will be trying to get us to copy something or improve on our efforts.
Even though we may develop a uniquely individual style such as Picasso or Dali, even they still had outside influences that contributed to their unfolding creative journeys. Next time you are loioking at an artists, see if you can determine possible influences upon that artist and think about how it has appeared in their current work.
I came across a work by Ramon Enrich the other day, thinking it had been done by Giorgio Morandi, even though it was a landscape and Morandi did very few works of that type as he focused on painting still life objects. 4
If we look at the above two works, you can see the way Enrich's palette has been influenced by Morandi. His work also holds something of the essence of works by Giorgio de Chirico. The way he uses shadows creates a similar feeling of time and place - even thought the palette is very different.
If you have been painting for a while, can you see how your favourite artists are perhaps filtering through into your own work in some way?
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