Quoted By:
>Many people feel they “can’t draw”; the predominant beliefs about learning to draw are: 1. Drawing is about what you see, either by eye or in your “imagination”, 2. People have talent or they don’t, 3. Having your “own” style is good, 4. Thus copying is bad.
>These beliefs are a relatively recent invention, and date back to the philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who proposed that culture might taint our more “natural” instincts. This is where they “copying is bad” part comes from. Rousseau’s ideas were invoked in the 1800s by the Austrian painter and educator Franz Cižek, who proposed that children’s true “inner artistic creativity” could only emerge if we prevented them from copying others, because imitation let in that “bad cultural influence”. Cižek’s framework was quickly taken up and spread in art education, which pointed to the skilled drawings produced by Cižek’s students, where it pushed for people to develop their own “unique” styles, and copying was considered a boundary to individuality. However there was really no *evidence* for this idea. In the 1970s, art educators Brent and Marjorie Wilson found that nearly all children copied drawings- and more skilled drawers copied more and were more creative, than those who didn’t copy
>Children’s drawings from Japan were shown to be most proficient of all children they studied—without the “drop off” in the progression of drawing ability around puberty shown elsewhere—since all children read and copy Japanese manga, which have a consistent visual vocabulary.
If you ever wondered why seemingly ever Holo (and Japanese pop culture figure in general) is able to draw at least somewhat competently.
Growing up in the west, as someone that gave up on drawing because of these pressures, I feel ripped off.
