ABSTRACT
The role of models is, for example, readily discernible in the history of painting. It is generally agreed that Japanese woodcuts had an influence on French Impressionists, that African tribal art as well as the wall paintings of Pompeii affected Picasso strongly and that the time-lapse photography of Muybridge affected Francis Bacon’s vision of the human figure, to choose three groups of paintings considered innovatory which nevertheless have known antecedents. The whole of the renaissance and later neo-classicism were conscious movements to find what were considered to be appropriate models, yet they were still able to arrive at original solutions. Examples in all the arts are numerous; form feeds on form.
