Do I contradict myself?

Throughout the day I’ve been giving more thought to the task set for our life-drawing class, during the current isolation regime, of copying a figure drawing done by a famous artist. My initial response was to suggest that I selected something by a well-known pastellist, such as Edgar Degas or Mary Cassatt. Last night, however, I was able to spend an hour looking through my art books and cruising the web, trying to find something suitable. During today, however, I abandoned this approach, and I’ve settled upon something quite different.

I’m not sure how it came into my head but I thought that by copying a pastel picture I might end up by attempting to be too closely imitative of the original, and would not get around to the aspect of the task suggested by our tutor, namely, that priority should be given to our response to the original rather than to accurate reproduction. If I were to select something in an entirely different medium, that might liberate me to respond to the task rather than simply to imitate the original.

Suddenly, as I was mowing the lawn in the afternoon sunshine, I had an inspiration. I could take the famous statue by Bernini, of Apollo and Daphne. When I saw the original I remember that I was completely bowled over by it. Might it be possible to capture something of that first response in a drawing? It is a very daunting prospect, but at least it is exciting.

Regular readers of this blog might well have a wry smile at this point in the light of my remarks on another occasion, indicating my relative lack of interest in the Baroque, and of course Bernini is nothing if he isn’t a Baroque sculptor. My only response, I suppose, is to quote T.S. Eliot. “Do I contradict myself? Very well: I contradict myself.” If I’m not careful I will end up parodying Monty Python. “What did the Baroque ever do for us?” …..