---
title: The Art of the Copyist
bookmark_of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRjwG1Ru7N8
date: 2026-08-13T09:26:00.000Z
published: true
tags:
  - art, museums
syndication:
  - all
notify: true
slug: ''
---

When I lived in Madrid, I loved seeing [the painters at El Prado](/photos/painters-of-madrid-1-61914663/?album=spain) every time I visited. It felt anachronistic given all the digital access we have to art, that someone would need to visit a museum to copy a painting by hand. But as Jas Knight points out in this YouTube video, you can't copy a painting until you've actually been able to walk right up to it and see it. Part tradition, sure, as[ Kottke](https://kottke.org/26/08/the-art-of-the-copyist) points out this Copyist program has been around since 1872, and maybe a right of passage. But also, there's just no other way. It's necessity. Tough, then, to have to navigate the tourists who stumble upon your work, as I did, and gawk at an art feeling so alive and well in a stagnant, stuffy gallery, as if it had died and been resurrected.