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How much can you learn by copying old masters ?
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Message
Posted
I am preparing for an exhibition at a museum which holds paintings by the 19th century Dutch painter B.C.Koekkoek. A friend and I have been invited to paint reproductions of his works. We have been busy painting several miniatures for the show as we are permitted to sell on the day as well. Has anyone got any experience with this kind of thing? Personally I have learnt a lot from this old master. Copying his landscape paintings was great fun and it has taught me a lot about composition, aerial perspective and much more. https://landscapeartblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/my-exhibition-at-a-museum-in-cleves/
Posted
I think that you can learn a lot by copying old masters, but applying it to your own style can be difficult. I've been wading through "Techniques of the Great Masters of Art" Chartwell Books (1985) Technical consultants include Waldemar Januszczak. It is an interesting read and has some useful tips like Joshua Reynolds painting a white smooth blob for the face to be painted over, as he wanted a smoother surface for the detail and the white paint would give the face a glow that the background did not have. They all seamed to paint rather than draw the the first marks though. Some of the impressionists used charcoal though.
I've had a lot of fun in art classes copying Monet and it has made me think differently about painting - it is no longer just a ruination of a perfectly good drawing.
Posted
Depends. If your intention is simply to copy what 's been done before so you can slap it on a chocolate box or biscuit tin then there's a limit on what you can learn, but as soon as you start applying the techniques in your own work it starts to get done in your own way - which means you're adapting old master's methods to your own style.
We have these conversations in the guitar world too. Nobody wants to be the second Jimi Hendrix; I want to be the first Alan Green.
Posted
I think direct copies are useful, they do involve the actual skill to do the work..
However - I also feel that a copy-with-alterations... adding your own personality and ways of thinking to the work, even if it STARTS out as an "in the manner of Old Master" helps even more.
Art is as much WHAT as the skill in the doing/making - by adding your own "what", even just a little bit, improves your ability to imagine and dream... just that little bit... each time.. adds up.
Even if it's a seaside scene and you add some birds or kids on the sand... a horse ride.. etc. After a while you'll be adding more and more and then... it'll be all your own work.
The reproduction is just 10x15cm while the original is 81x106cm
Posted
I've only copied an 'old master' once, and that was just a couple of weeks ago! I'd never before seen much point to it, as I always preferred to come up with my own ideas than copy other people's. Anyway, in answer to a challenge on another forum I had a go at a Van Gogh painting. I'm not really a big fan of much of his work so didn't really expect much, but I really enjoyed it, I learnt a lot about different techniques and colour usage, and it was a chance to have a go at something I wouldn't normally. I'd like to do copies more often.
Kay.
Posted
Phil, you're telling people what to paint. That's never going to work here or anywhere else.
"Realist", "figurative", "imagination" - it's all illusion. Every realistic painting contains abstract elements, and most abstracts contain references to the real world, whatever that is.
This is the sort of argument people get into when they should be painting - just do it.
Posted
The debate about realism is interesting.
If the painting is ultra-realistic (like those ink pen drawings of faces that look almost identical to a photo) - then the art is more in the knowing that it's not a painting.
Again, referencing those realistic pen drawings - if you can't tell that it's not a photo and have to be told.. then it might as well BE a photo - once you know it's not the "wow factor" comes from the artists skill, not the art itself. And I;m not knocking that skill!
To me, that's poor art - the picture doesn't say it, the "wow" over the skill involved says it -- and I think that's wrong, the picture IS the art. The skill exists, of course, but the skill alone shouldn't be the focus.
The lesser-realistic but still "realism" work - here the skill AND the painting are the art - when you can see the strokes, see that it's realistic but still a painting then that's good artwork.
To me, it's a bit like that part in the film "2012" where they are collecting the artwork for storage and putting "undetectable fakes" in the galleries for the people to keep viewing.
If it can't be detected without microscopic forensic examination -- what does it matter, it IS the art. And the response (in the film) of "I'll still know it's a fake" smells of "loving the art v=becasue it;s expensive rather than nice".
When you go and see the "Mona Lisa" - do you KNOW for sure that it's the original or a very good copy... I don't believe people would (unless it was a scrappy copy).
As an aside... there is another film to reference - "Rat Race", a comedy.
In this film there was a "Museum of Art Forgery" - the curator showed people around, stated that the paintings were all forgeries and that they were for sale at a modest fee. Even showed the son hard at work painting.
The truth was that they were ALL originals and the guy who owned them died and stated in his will that they were to go to people who loved them for their ART, not becasue they were expensive or by a "famous artist".
All of the art critics visiting the museum couldn't tell that they were originals and poo-poo'd them as "just a copy... a good cipy but still just a copy".
