Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Learning

Me as a five-year-old. Mom, what did you do to my poor bangs?

When I was a little girl, I was a rule follower. Thank goodness I had those three brothers to knock me off my prissy little pedestal, or I might have turned out to be a full-on goody-two-shoes. Luckily, I learned how to keep my head down and my mouth shut, especially at school, where some little girls turned into classroom tattletales who ruthlessly ratted out even the smallest offenses to the teacher.

I was most in awe of a brash little lady in my third grade class named Martha Kenney. Her blonde curls would bounce and swing as she swiveled her head up and down the aisle, looking for a violation. Her straight arrow of an arm would shoot up in the air when she spotted a problem. And when the teacher called on her, I would listen in horror to the charges: "He kicked me!" "She took my pencil!" "He won't let me have a turn!" "She said a bad word!"

All heinous offenses, to be sure.

But the absolute worst classroom crime ever to be reported was this one: "She copied me!"

Copying. It shocked me to my prim and proper grade-school soul. What could be worse than a person who STEALS the thoughts of another person? The teachers shared my indignation and usually gave the copiers a stern rebuke. The lesson they taught me was clear: in life, you must rely only on your unique and completely original thoughts; this world has no place for people who borrow, embellish or otherwise trespass upon others' ideas.

Fast forward a few years - be sure to hit pause once or twice to listen to my anti-plagiarism speeches to my daughters and students - and replay an episode from my life this weekend.

This photo I claimed as 'inspiration' for a painting project:

Carrier and Company

And this is a photo of 'my' finished product:

Any objective observer would accuse me of some Grade A, no-holds-barred copying. And I would have no defense whatsoever. Except to say this. 

My views about 'copying' have changed dramatically over the years. In fact, I don't even think of it as 'copying.' 

What we call this intentional act of mimicking, repeating, reflecting or creating a likeness of someone else's work, can also be seen as imitation. It's the most powerful form of learning known to man.

Think of how we acquire the most cognitively complex and difficult task of the human brain: the ability to use language. For the first months of life, we do nothing but watch and listen. We spend a lot of time just figuring out how it's done. Then, when we think we are starting to get the hang of it, we begin to imitate. We listen to what others say, and then to the best of our ability, we repeat it.

Mama. Dada. Bye-bye. Jooz. Ni-night. 

Yes, we COPY. But there is no shame in that. It is a beautiful example of how the mind learns.

Toes are for counting.
The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt

As we move on to other subject matter, the process stays the same. We learn to count by imitating how others point to our toes and say special words in a certain order, we acquire table manners by observing that others use slim shiny objects to get the food into the mouth with less spillage, we develop interesting forms of play by spending time with older kids and watching how they roll. 

Learning by imitation is the most natural and effective form of education.

Listening is learning.
Nurse Reading to a Little Girl by Mary Cassatt

My algebra students copy my work off the board each time we meet. We call it "taking notes." I give them specific processes to follow, down to an exact description of how I want them to organize their work. We call it "learning to solve a problem." And I didn't make those things up...I got them out of our textbook. We call that "teaching."

My daughters learned how to craft well-written essays by working alongside of me, discussing together how to form strong paragraphs and interesting sentences. They learned to spell by looking at correctly spelled words, and copying down the proper formation of letters. They learned to cook by reading a recipe and doing exactly what the book says to do. Replicating science experiments, memorizing Latin declensions, remembering how many electrons are in each shell of a carbon atom; all these processes involve a strong element of imitation.

But, an objector might say, art is different. It is an aesthetic description of a personal point of view and therefore, copying another person's art and representing it as your own is wrong.

Interestingly, the great artists of the world would probably disagree. Just like any other skill, the ability to make art is learned, not inborn. And imitation is the greatest form of learning for artists, just as it is for anyone else.

The standing woman is believed to be noted Impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt, studying a painting in an art museum. The seated woman, believed to be Cassatt's sister, is holding a sketchbook, indicating their intentions.
Visit to a Museum by Edgar Degas

Take the great Impressionist painters of the late 19th century. A few years back, the Seattle Art Museum hosted a traveling exhibit that explained how the strongest artists of that movement earned their chops. A large part of their training involved sitting around museums and copying the great art of their day:

Beneath the Impressionists' commitment to capturing contemporary life, there lay a deep exploration of the European art of the early 19th century and of the centuries that came before. The Impressionists learned from art historical sources by making painstaking oil copies executed at museums such as the Louvre. These copies, as well as drawings and sketchbook studies by the Impressionists, are shown with the old masters' works they copied.

-from Inspiring Impressionism: The Impressionists and the Art of the Past

So. Did I shamelessly copy another artist's work this weekend? Maybe. But I don't see it like that.

Did I use another artist's work to inspire me, to instruct me, and to get me moving on a long-overdue project? Yes. Exactly.

If I knew that artist's name, I would contact her and thank her for what I learned by copying her painting. And maybe, just maybe, she would tell me that she copied it from someone before her.

We all learn from each other. Take that, Martha Kenney.

This is my favorite painting by Mary Cassatt. Who knows, I might just 'imitate' this for my next painting.
Summertime by Mary Cassatt