Trop picks: Monet's garden in Naoshima

The art historian Karl Eric Maison (1900-71) once wrote:

“We live in an age of dubious propositions about what is valid and invalid in art. We are dominated by romantic notions which have raised the virtue of originality so high that to imitate has become one of the artist’s capital crimes, an activity suited only to young students who blush to be accused of it. To copy, to follow, even to quote from the past, except in witty paraphrase, is to stand condemned, and this is an attitude of mind which has been growing for many years.”