"My work was plagiarized." Recently, the painter Xiao Wu (pseudonym) found that he plagiarized his paintings and was selected for the 2023 Zhejiang Primary and Secondary School Students Art Festival Art Outstanding Works Exhibition, the author is a middle school student from Wenzhou. Xiao Wu searched on the Internet and found that many paintings in this excellent exhibition were involved in plagiarism. Earlier, the netizen "Hongpeiya", who reported that his work was plagiarized, has received feedback from the education department - after investigation, the Organizing Committee of the Zhejiang Primary and Secondary School Student Art Festival has cancelled the award qualification of the allegedly plagiarized works. (Chao News, December 12)
Since it is an art competition for elementary and junior high school students, it is natural that the work should be made by children. Painting is originally an educational method to exercise and cultivate children's imagination and creativity, is it meaningful to cheat? Is it a misunderstanding of "borrowing", a slight change on the basis of copying, or is it intentional?
Xiao Wu pointed out that the main character accused of plagiarizing the painting "copied" the original paintings of Peking Opera characters Wang Baochuan, Zhou Yu and Yang Xiangwu on social media platforms one by one. Some of the works in the exhibition are even identical to the originals. Whether it is "borrowing" or plagiarism, it is not difficult for the public to make a judgment.
The problem of plagiarism of art works by primary and secondary school students is not an isolated case. In recent years, news of plagiarism and substitution in children's art competitions has appeared repeatedly, and children's art competitions have even become the "hardest hit area" for plagiarism.
The root cause of problems in children is often in the adult world. In the process of searching for which original paintings have been plagiarized, Xiao Wu found that there are many stores on Taobao that advertise slogans such as "Painting children's paintings, must be selected for high-end competitions" and "Art teachers painting professionally", with monthly sales ranging from hundreds to five or six thousand, or even tens of thousands. There is demand before there is business, and the plagiarism "business" is so hot that a chain of interests has been formed.
Pity the hearts of parents all over the world. The mood of wishing for a son to become a dragon and a daughter to become a phoenix is understandable, but to win honor for the child in an improper way, is it love for the child or harm the child? The most important thing in children's painting is not painting skills but imagination, and the imagination of adults is far inferior to that of children. Once the "East Window Incident" happens, you will be disqualified from winning the award and bear the relevant responsibilities, aren't you worried about leaving a psychological shadow on your children? Even if you are lucky enough to pass the test, can you grow up well with such blatant deception and let your child be contaminated with such a utilitarian style and vulgarity from an early age?
The organizers should also strengthen and improve the means of supervision. Taking the art competition of the Zhejiang Provincial Primary and Secondary School Students Art Festival as an example, although the organizers clearly required the municipal education administrative departments and schools to strictly control the customs in advance to avoid copyright disputes, the results were still unsatisfactory.
Compared with the duplicate check of written works such as papers, it is relatively difficult to review art works, but why can netizens find clues? If children's paintings can be judged by childlike innocence and childlike playfulness as the main criterion, can adults' works be "mixed"? Some experts said, "Once aesthetic education is linked to competitions and evaluations, it is easy to go against the original intention." Can we consider improving the rules of participation, dilute the color of evaluation and rewards, and try to highlight the original intention of "improving aesthetic literacy", so that this kind of activity is more in line with the spirit of aesthetic education. (China Youth Daily)