Many visitors ask me why I copy at the museum. The best answer is "Because they let me!" This free program is too valuable to pass up, and it's a privilege that I want to take advantage of. Also, it is a priceless opportunity to study works of art in person, and at length. When I visit a museum to look at paintings, I spend maybe five minutes at the most in front of a particular work. I also see so many works in a single visit that none of them makes a very big impression on me.
However, when I copy a painting, I am immersed in that particular work of art for many weeks or months. I study it minutely, and am able to get up close and scrutinize the artist's brush strokes. I am able to see which strokes were put on first, and which came later. This kind of insight is not apparent when you see a reproduction in a book.
I also feel a connection to the artist. When I copied Monet's "The Japanese Footbridge", I had an almost eerie feeling that Monet, wherever he is, was somehow aware that I was studying his painting. I know this is silly, but that's how it felt as I stood there studying and copying his brush strokes. I got lost in making the marks, and just felt connected to him somehow. Monet is just about my favorite painter, and I love studying him and his work.
I can remember seeing copyists at the National Gallery when I visited there as a child. I used to think that I would NEVER want to be in that position, of being on display trying to make a copy of a great master's painting! I thought it would be embarrassing, and the public would criticize my efforts. But in reality, copying is nothing like that. Visitors to the museum are as nice as can be, and never criticize my copy. The biggest problem I have is having my concentration interrupted constantly, as visitors want to ask me questions. But that is just part of the copying experience, and I am used to it. I am used to painting in public from working outdoors in "plein air" at crowded parks and other tourist sites, so I'm pretty good at screening distractions out.
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copying at the National Gallery
A friend turned me on to the Copyist Program at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in the fall of 2000. Since I live in Northern Virginia, it is pretty convenient (about 45 minutes travel time) to get there. I called the Registrar of the museum to say I was interested in becoming a copyist, and she said she would mail me a packet of information and requirements. I received the packet in the next day's mail! I read through all the rules and regulations of being a copyist, and saw that I would need to come up with four letters of recommendation: two from people who knew me as an artist, and two character references. I immediately contacted four people who could serve as references, and asked them to mail in letters for me. I was also required to write my own letter, stating why I was interested in the copyist program. Finally, I had an interview with the Registrar and showed her two of my paintings. I was accepted into the program that day, and within a month of that first phone call, I was standing in the National Gallery copying my first painting.
Copyists are given a locker in a locked room in the museum. I keep my current painting there, in the painting rack. I have to ask a guard to unlock the copyists' room whenever I want to access my locker. The museum provides a large easel, stool, and dropcloth, which are in position in the gallery I am copying in. A permit must be obtained for each painting I copy, and I'm only allowed to work on one at a time. I have to have my permit on me or with the painting all the time, and show it to the guards on request. Only one copyist is allowed in a room on a given day, and some of the rooms are off limits because they are too small. Only works in the West Building are available for copying. There are other restrictions, such as not being able to sell your copy while on National Gallery property, and having to size your copy at least two inches smaller or larger than the original.
Copyists are given a locker in a locked room in the museum. I keep my current painting there, in the painting rack. I have to ask a guard to unlock the copyists' room whenever I want to access my locker. The museum provides a large easel, stool, and dropcloth, which are in position in the gallery I am copying in. A permit must be obtained for each painting I copy, and I'm only allowed to work on one at a time. I have to have my permit on me or with the painting all the time, and show it to the guards on request. Only one copyist is allowed in a room on a given day, and some of the rooms are off limits because they are too small. Only works in the West Building are available for copying. There are other restrictions, such as not being able to sell your copy while on National Gallery property, and having to size your copy at least two inches smaller or larger than the original.
About Me
- Amy Mann
- I went to Philadelphia College of Art and earned a bachelor's degree in painting. In 1999 I founded the Centreville Regional Art Guild, and was its president from 1999-2002. I’m a registered Copyist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I’m a plein-air landscape painter, and have studied in New Brunswick, Canada with painter Sharon Yates. I have also studied with painter Janet Fish.
5 comments:
This is a great way to see into this part of your life, thanks for setting it up! I got a good understanding of "copying" which somehow seems a little too simple a term. It's interesting how you can go to a place of history, or see an object associated with a well-known person, and feel connected even if they lived long ago - and actually painting the same strokes (if you go to that level of detail) or the image in general must give an even stronger feeling of connection.
Also interesting to contrast copying to, say, taking a digital picture and printing - see "appropriate technology", just because you can get a job done easier doesn't mean it is the most appropriate way!
I wonder how copying a painting compares to "copying" reality, and what is the experience of copying a landscape and then traveling to that place to paint it again?
I believe copying is a good way to revive both a common interest in art, and individual excellence and integrity in one's own art.
It seems to me that copying makes up the majority of artistic training throughout history. Only in the most recent century or so was the idea of breaking with studio conventions and apprenticeships and going straight to one's own visual experience as a teacher. The world of appearances is not a very audible teacher, or very clear-cut. Telling one to paint what he sees is sort of like telling him to drink from a river--highly, or arbitrarily, selective and unsystematic.
The difference between copying a picture and copying from reality is that it is narrower. One is copying an appearance, but also an interpretation and an opinion. But that is beside the point of learning picture-making, which nature cannot teach.
In the old four stages of art instruction in Japan, one was copying and one was proportioning. The student would learn to copy brushworks--simple ones, to gain confidence by being able to reproduce them spontaneously from memory--but then,the student would copy pictures on a different scale (i.e., smaller or larger) to get a feel for proportioning.
The Impressionist legacy leaves us to face nature unclad with aesthetic canons and ways of the craft. But our task is now different. Vermeer as well as Monet wanted to put down with paint exactly the color that he saw. But Monet, out of the 19th century, had the impulse of the time to break with convention--as did Seurat, Matisse, Van Gogh, etc. In copying the outdoor color of leaves, he wanted to, or allowed himself to, disregard the conventions of drawing the shapes of leaves, and just put down the impression of the colored light. Whereas today we have no solid conventions to break out of, so a reconstruction of the craft, via copying from the great pictures, and even from the works seen first-hand (rather than reproductions) is salutary.
Your description of the feeling you get of being somehow attached to Monet is fascinating. You shouldn't discount it as not being real.
Your description of the feeling you get of being somehow attached to Monet is fascinating. You shouldn't discount it as not being real.
Your description of the feeling you get of being somehow attached to Monet is fascinating. You shouldn't discount it as not being real.
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