Is There Such Thing as Talent for Art Exist

I don't believe in talent.

I don't believe that anyone is born with a natural sense of color, or with a natural sense of design.

I don't believe that anyone is built-in with a natural ability to draw.

Or make music, or play football, or anything else for that affair. I don't believe in talent. Particularly in relation to representational drawing and painting, I believe that the skills nosotros demand to produce beautiful work are learned and perfected over time, even by the 'greats.'

I call back that the greats are (or were) the greats considering of 2 things: loftier levels of personal motivation, that helped them to go along working when most people fall by the wayside, and secondly, beingness lucky enough to discover themselves in nurturing environments from an early age.

And the second of these is probably the most telling.

But What About Geniuses? What Nigh Mozart, Picasso?

Mozart is often used every bit an example of innate talent. But he was born to a father that not merely equanimous for a living, he also taught music. Mozart was drilled from a very young age by a begetter who was obsessed with seeing his son succeed. Mozart's early compositions, often touted equally evidence of his incredible precocity and talent, were certainly non great symphonies and were very likely edited and revised by his more experienced father. He didn't etch the cute work we know him for now until he was a young adult, by which time he'd already put in thousands upon thousands of hours of controlled practice.

Picasso is a similar example. There are many documented cases of extremely high achievers existence built-in into such nurturing environments, and much enquiry has borne this out. But environments like that are rare, and not all people so luckily born will have advantage of their good fortune.

That's why achievement at the really top levels is rare, non because a very few are blessed with a souvenir that the rest of us don't accept.

You Liberate Yourself Past Accepting Responsibility For Your Own Achievements

The thought of innate talent is particularly well established in the arts, which is unfortunate for u.s.a. painters.

But we don't have to fall in with accepted wisdom.

Accepting instead that keen artists are fabricated and not built-in has ii results, ane very sobering and the other liberating:

• It ways that we are all responsible for our own levels of achievement – at least to a larger extent than we might experience comfortable albeit. That's sobering, because if we're not very expert at what we practise then we have to have responsibility for that situation ourselves.
• But at the same fourth dimension it's liberating, because it means that we also have the power to modify it.

That's the position I start from.

I came to this realisation in 2006, when I'd but been on this road for a few months, and wrote nigh information technology in a mail entitled 'There are no curt cuts.' Reading that post again now, 5 years later, the but thing I'd change is that I no longer believe that I was born with a talent for drawing.

As a child I was better than most of the kids I knew, that'due south true, but information technology's in no way proof of innate talent. I drew a lot when I was little so I had a head start, unproblematic as that. Unfortunately, like the hare, I sat down and cruel comatose for a while, for far besides long.

Now I'm trying to make up for lost time with a whole heap of other stuff to deal with at the same time, bills and a chore. Such is life.

I'd encourage anyone who doubts this point of view to read Talent Is Overrated. I've just finished information technology after a reader here was kind enough to send me a copy. Information technology's confirmed much of what I already believed, and although it'south written primarily from a business point of view, much of it is applicable to learning representational painting.

But be warned: if yous believe that some people are born naturally gifted, be prepared to sacrifice a few of your sacred cows on the alter of your ego. One time you've done that, you'll find that you lot're in a position to really accept control of your own progress. And if your feel with the book is anything like mine, you'll find yourself inspired.

Your But Limitation Is The Amount Of Time Y'all Have Left And What You Choose To Practice With It

I know I'll never exist a Velazquez or a Veronese, I'm already 45. They were already Ferraris in their teens and I'chiliad an old banger wheezing slowly up the hill. That doesn't thing to me.

Although I know I'll never reach close to those heights I guarantee yous this: by the time I pop my clogs I'll be a hell of a lot amend than I am now. What matters to me is seeing how far I can become from where I am today, and from where I'll be tomorrow. Of course in that location are some things that are outside our control, but that doesn't stop us working on the things that aren't.

I plan to post at more length about this earlier too long, and to develop this theme over the residuum of this new yr in both the posts I write here and the piece of work and practice that I do.

I was in ii minds whether to leave the comments open up on this post. I have left them open considering I similar to hear from people so much, and I learn so much from the comments that everybody leaves here. But I will say this: I don't want to get into a long give-and-take about whether or not talent exists with people who think it does. For myself, I turn down to take that limitation. I will not believe that at that place is a ceiling to how good I can get that's enforced past whatsoever limitation I tin can't command except time. If you lot believe that there is then that'due south entirely up to yous of course, but don't expect me to fence with you well-nigh it, I've got besides much practice to do.

This site is for people who want to get better at what they do, and who believe that with do, they tin can.

Now I know from experience that I'll have times when I'm besides down to piece of work, when I lose hope and give up temporarily. I have bouts of depression that regularly floor me (there, I said information technology) but that won't stop me trying. The only things that can limit how far I can go from here are my ain motivation and the amount of time I have to exercise in.

If you feel the same then hop in, at that place's room in this erstwhile banger for enough more.

Information technology doesn't seem right to post without adding a picture, so hither's an orange from effectually the fourth dimension of my 'no short cuts' postal service and a sketch of a clementine I did today. It's as fair an analogy as I know how to find of what can be achieved with time and practice.

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Source: https://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/talent

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