In a couple of recent blogs, we explored the practice of copying as an integral part of the artist’s apprenticeship & we did this in two different contexts. On one hand, art students copy the drawings & paintings of the Old & Modern Masters as a time-honored way to learn from them. Additionally, students copy from “how-to” books, especially when learning & practicing specific media, such as pen & ink or watercolor. In both of these contexts, the reference – what the student is looking at & seeking to replicate – is a drawing or painting (or more likely, a reproduction of a drawing or painting that appears, for example, in a book or on a museum postcard).
Keep in mind that when we engage in this kind of copying, the original artist has already done for us the difficult work of translating & interpreting something in the physical world (or possibly, a concept or emotion) into the marks & strokes we see. We get our turn to do this difficult work after we’ve attained a degree of proficiency & confidence in a particular medium. In order to do so, though, we must first choose a reference for our painting. Since we won’t be looking at someone else’s painting or drawing this time, we must decide what we will be looking at: It could be some fruit or flowers we’ve arranged into a still life. Or it could be someone we’ve asked to pose for us. Or we could go outside & paint something we see. Or… we could simply use a photo as a reference. Ideally, we will chose a photo that we took ourselves, although many times & for various reasons, it will instead be a photo that someone else – usually a professional photographer – took & which we saw on a calendar, say, or in a magazine or on the Internet.
And here we have our third example of copying, for even though we will be doing the hard work of translating the photographic image into a painting, we will nonetheless be once again copying a reference whose image belongs to somebody else. And the bottom line is: Legally, morally & ethically, we can never sell a painting based on or derived from someone else’s photographic image, just as we can never sell a painting copied from (or even derived from!) someone else’s painting.
So why is it common for art students to copy from photos whose image they don’t own? The short answer is because good-quality photographic images are so readily available & because taking one’s own photos can seem so daunting. (Why use a photo as a reference at all? The very short answer to this notably controversial question – & good topic for a future blog! – is convenience.)
At any rate, the truth is that many art students continue to copy, either from others’ artwork or from others’ photographic images, long after they themselves have achieved the technical skills & experience to create original work. In fact, copying can often take on a life of its own & come to seem like a perfectly acceptable end in itself. And after all, one can certainly learn how to cook, yet be content to follow others’ recipes; or learn how to sew, but continue to purchase patterns. Are we implying that everyone who learns to play the piano, for instance, must also compose their own music?
I recently took these musings to my dear friend, scholar & author Anne Callahan, & asked her to weigh in. This is the essence of what she said: Our initial impulse to learn how to draw & paint sprang from a deep-seated desire to find & connect with something that was experienced by us, on an unconscious level, as missing or lacking. Our attainment of the necessary skills to be able to draw & paint gets us only part of the way to fulfilling this desire for discovery & connection. Since the origin of the desire is unique for each of us, we can only complete the whole journey when we begin creating art that is uniquely ours. And we can only accomplish that after we stop copying & start uncovering & pursuing our own source(s) of inspiration.
In the next blog, let’s look at some strategies for doing just that.