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The unreasonable prejudice against copying, has induced some writers to recommend to young artists, not to copy even good pictures, but to look into them & apply their principles to the imitation of nature, when it should be known that the best way to look into a picture is to copy it, and that by this process the art has always [[strikethrough]] be [[/strikethrough]] been learned & perpetuated. What would have become of sculpture if the clay model and the Plaster Cast could not be copied in marble. 

The Student of Painting whose object is to learn to paint from nature, will not confine himself exclusively to copying, which is only one of the means of study; as the student of Music will first study the principles of his art, by learning to execute the compositions of others, before he ventures to compose new modifications of sounds from his own invention - indeed the most proficient musical performer, who would proudly & vainly despise the art of repeating an admired composition by another Composer, living or dead, refuses to enlarge his knowledge, as a man who would refuse to employ the thoughts & experience of others in language, morals or sciences.

Bardwell,* himself an excellent copyist, especially from the paintings by Rubens & Vandyke, tells us - "That the art of copying, which was practised by the Great Masters in order to catch each others excellencies & perfections, and by which their noble works have been so often respected & renewed, is so far from deserving contempt, that it ought to be encouraged as a thing highly useful & worthy of esteem. "Rubens studied principally the works of Titian, Paul Veronese & Tintoretto and kept them for his own use." "Vandycke copied Titian & all the Venetian School. Hanneman's copies of Vandycke are taken for the originals of that great master" - "was it not for this, the Art itself would soon dwindle & decay"

Copies

The divine Artist, after having created the most perfect forms in Adam & Eve, has manifested his wisdom & Benevolence, by an unlimited repetition of them; and thus every beauty of creation acquires additional value from its multiplication. No work of the creature Man is worthy 

* "Treatise on the Practice of painting in oil. 1756.