“Paris offers… the museums in which you can study the old masters;… from 12 to 4 you copy, in the Louvre or the Luxembourg, whatever masterpiece you like.” — Zola’s letter to Cezanne, 1858
Art made in eras that are historically and culturally different from our own provides a limitless source of instruction and inspiration. For the artist, the process of copying masterpieces internalizes craft and visual options that are proven to work. By studying successful arrangements of color, shape, and abstraction, copying transforms the passive experience of looking into active engagement. When looking at art with brush in hand, the result can help students of art more readily recognize the expressive potential in their own prosaic circumstances. In that way, art helps both maker and viewer live better.
A page of gouache copies painted in bound books, made between 2008–2012 from print reproductions, can be found by clicking this link.
ABOVE: Raymond Legueult, Women at the Seashore, 1956, copy in gouache on handmade Indian paper, bound book, 8×8 inches, 2012.