The Influence of an Artist

Just how much inspiration does an artist get from any artist model? Obviously it depends on how much a person copies or follows their particular style or type of painting. If you are painting in the style of someone, it would be hard press for them not to be much of an influence. take Jackson Pollock for example. It would be impossible to do a drip painting without him having an influence on your art; whether you actively pursued him as inspiration or not.
But what of Jackson Pollock. He was the first painter of his style. There were no artists that dripped paint over a canvas laid out on the floor. Yet there is no doubt that he had huge influence from other artists, Diego Riviera(?), Picasso's Guernica - largely because of the size of the canvas.
It is a room full of questions I keep on finding myself walking into when painting. As you possibly could tell, or maybe this is the first time you've recognized it; since returning from Europe, in particular Rome, and London and more specifically the Tate Gallery full of J.W.M Turner paintings, I have embarked on a mission to create, develop and shift my own paintings into the same ilk. It is the beauty of the works and the grace in which they capture the scene that seduces me into their aesthetic beauty. The fact that they so well before their time astounds me. It is now, some 150 years on since Turner's death that they can finally be placed into a stylistic period. At the time of their creation, there was no place for them.
It is this which I wish to continue. Not to copy, not to try and better Turner, or even class myself in the same league - for that is well beyond anyone's reach. Turner was an art genius, and there is no comparison to the time, effort and training that Turner put into his work to that of my own art practice. I can only hope but to somehow learn from what he did and apply it to my own style. For that is what it is - my own style in which only I can develop, change and mold to better my own artworks.
Artists only learn from what has gone before them. Every now and then we have artists which shift the boundaries - such as da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso, Pollock, Turner, Constable... who change the entire art world. It is these people who we recognize on a last name basis, almost as an honorary gesture with a silent "Sir" on the front of their names, that define art, who make it possible for the rest of us to find our own style within the rubble of artistic genius they leave behind.