In 2007 I painted a series of acrylic paintings illustrating the lyrics to some of my favorite Classic Rock songs. The first one I did was King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King. This painting has been on the Internet for almost ten years. The other day I Googled "In The Court Of The Crimson King Paintings" to see if my painting was still there. It was. All of the other images that came up were based on the iconic album cover, except one. This version was basically like mine and if I had seen this first I probably wouldn't have bothered painting mine. I like this painting but I wonder was the song itself the real inspiration for this painting or was my painting the inspiration? I know that sounds egotistical but consider this:
Here's my version.
Here's what I assume is the newer version since I've never seen this one before and I've been searching for something like this (my version) online for almost a decade. Let me be clear, I like this a lot and I'm not complaining if someone saw my painting and decided he (or she) could do better. Art is largely a matter of taste and there's room for everything. If my painting was the inspiration I'd be flattered. Where each of my illustrated lyric paintings are done in a different style to best get across the feel of the song, this painting is done in a style that the artist uses a lot. There is a sizable collection of paintings in this same style although from what I can tell none of the others are based on song lyrics. What makes me think the artist ever saw my version? Most of the images in this new version are either different such as "the grinding wheel" in this one looks more like a water wheel, and the ones that are very similar are, of course, illustrating the same image described in the song. But there are two images in this painting that seem inspired more by my painting than by the song lyrics.
Here's my version. I used the same pose of the gardener kneeling down in the flowerbed as he plants a sapling but the lyrics state he "tramples" the flower. Wouldn't that suggest he's standing? You trample something by walking or running on it, at least by standing on it. You can squash something from kneeling on it but are you really trampling it? Wouldn't it be better if he was standing with a shovel digging a hole for the tree? Okay, maybe that was just a coincidence but here's another example:
The line here is "On soft, gray mornings widows cry, the wise men share a joke". Because of the biblical Wise Men I made three of them but unlike the biblical wise men I suggested one was Jewish, one Islamic and one Christian. There were no Christians or Muslims during the time of Christ.
Here is the same line. Three wise men, in the same pose and even the same hand gesture and to dispel any doubt that one is Christian, one Islamic and one Jewish, one has a Christian cross above his head, one an Islamic crescent moon above his head and one a Star of David. There is NOTHING in that lyric to suggest these wise men were three in number or represented three different religions or were even religious at all. That was completely my doing. The only difference is that in my painting it's the Jewish guy telling the joke (seems more natural) and in the other painting the Christian is telling the joke which undoubtedly is "A Jew and an Arab walk into a bar...:
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