[hdbyxeup] Creator of mathematical art

Your computer program draws a picture of a fractal, perhaps the Mandelbrot set.

Did you create this fractal (not the image, but abstractly the fractal itself), or was the fractal always there, created by god, who wove the original patterns of mathematics into the universe?

This concept, now limited to mathematical art, used to pervade all of art: you are merely the conduit of a divine creative force which created all things, and as such, since you are not the creator, you cannot morally claim ownership over "your" art as intellectual property.  (As physical property, sure.)  This is why, for most of human history, copyright did not exist, and people did not have a problem with copying or being copied.

This is vastly in contrast to the current popular way of thinking that, if someone duplicates "your" art, then something that was yours, your intellectual property, has been taken from you.  It was not always like this.

Some quotes from Michelangelo, which seem almost humorous now, but were serious then.  The existence of a statue inside a block of stone is just the same as the existence of a fractal inside whole of mathematics. The same could be said, and was said, about 2D art, music, or text.

"Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it."

"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it."

"Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop."

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

(Legally, could Benoit Mandelbrot's estate claim copyright of the Mandelbrot set, and demand royalties for every image produced of it as a derived work?  Even modern thinking has qualms about this.)

Previously, on the Roman concept of an external genius responsible for creativity.