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THREAD: THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE GRYPHON
I run a Dungeons & Dragon campaign with my buds, and a recurring character in the campaign is an animated Stone Gryphon that delivers messages. Since we do it online, I often use Google-sourced images to display onscreen while I get ready.
I run a Dungeons & Dragon campaign with my buds, and a recurring character in the campaign is an animated Stone Gryphon that delivers messages. Since we do it online, I often use Google-sourced images to display onscreen while I get ready.
Since the Gryphon is making an appearance in my next session, I was looking for a nice picture of a Gryphon Statue, and Google images happened to show me these two images next to one another.
Immediately I’m like, oh snap, one of these is clearly plagiarized off the other, and I had to know since I’m... I dunno, obsessed with truth and justice or something? I just had to know. So I started to research both of these images to find the answer.
This sculpt was the work of David Lawrence, made circa 1999. It is described as “meticulously based on John Tenniel’s illustration of the Gryphon from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” from the year 1865. Here they are next to one another.
This Gryphon lives at the entrance to the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. It was unveiled in 2014 and has been a landmark at the University since. Designed by FASTWURMS, an artist collective comprising two professors at the University, and two MFA graduates of Guelph.
So I thought, okay, both of these statues are based on this illustration!But not quite. See, there’s tons of articles about the Gryphon at Guelph, because it’s a school centerpiece. But every one only hailed the design work by FASTWURMS, and no source mentioned John Tenniel.
Eventually I found a local Tribune, unaffiliated with the school, that at least mentioned Lewis Carrol, the writer of Alice in Wonderland, as the inspiration. But that’s not even really proper credit for John Tenniel, as they.... aren’t the same person.
So is this just a case of improper crediting? We should obviously always credit references, especially if our art is clearly based on something so specific. But I think this goes deeper. I actually think the Guelph Gryphon is a Plagiarism of Lawrence’s sculpt specifically.
When you take something from 2D to 3D, you need to take small liberties to the design to make it look realistic from all angles. Lawrence put the Gryphon on a podium with its claws and tail hanging off, and made some very slight tweaks to the anatomy of the back leg and wings.
The Guelph Gryphon has emulated these changes EXACTLY, down to which claws hang off which side of the podium and the musculature in the back leg. The only differences are the absence of extra “fluff” on the tail, and Guelph’s gryphon has its eyes open instead of closed.
I also found a source from 2016 which reported that the Gryphon statue would be replaced, stating “While many people have enjoyed the presence of the statue, a large contingent of people felt that it did not represent the Guelph Gryphons in all of their true glory.”
Was this because people knew it was not an original work, or did they want something closer to the School’s official logo?
The Guelph Gryphon itself debunked the rumor, calling it Fake News. He has his own twitter account. The statue still stands today. https://twitter.com/GryphonStatue/status/809028419212165120?s=20
In the end, is this a case of poorly credited inspiration, or outright plagiarism? Personally, I think it’s both. Of course, I don’t think that the Guelph Gryphon should be removed, because it really is amazing. But…maybe they should think about all that Gryphon merch they sell.
