“Historically, imitating someone else’s work was part of forming your own style, but it wasn’t a way to make your own work. The imitation of subject matter, though, was part and parcel of the humbler genres of documentary art–still lifes, landscapes, portraits. The pinnacle of artistic production was instead what they called history painting, and this involved imagining scenes from mythology, history, or the Bible; how one imagined was supposed to depend on the canon of previous imaginings. Artists who practiced history painting shaped their approach by emulating other artists, whether contemporaries or the ancients. That’s how I’ve trained myself over more than thirty years, by drawing in museums, churches, and the great houses of Europe……..Artists Network
Our friends at Artvilla have started a series of video pages on how to paint like the masters. “Good artists copy, great artists steal”….Attributed to Picasso…..Art is a trade, a guild. One must learn any trade from the masters of that trade., This was true in the High Italian Renaissance and it’s true today.
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How to Paint Like Monet
How to Paint Like Picasso
How to Paint Like Vincent Van Gogh
How to Paint Like Renoir
How to Paint Like Rembrandt
How to Paint Like Vermeer
How to Paint Like Jackson Pollock
How to Draw Like Michelangelo
How to Draw in the Renaissance Style