A GREAT MISTAKE

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 111, 12 May 1902, Page 2

A GREAT MISTAKE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I am sorry to find that amateurs and students are allowed to copy the valuable pictures in your excellent Art Gallery. In the first place, the student derives no benefit by copying a picture, but may, oi course, learn something useful in studying the technique and methods of masters, but there is no need to copy the picture to learn this. Tbose who go in for copying are, as a rule, devoid of originality and imagination, "ud will never become artists worthy the name. The other class of copyists copy for filthy lucre, and we find scores of wretched copies of, excellent works wherever we go, until we grow sick of the original. I consider a picture to lose in value 25 per cent, each time it is copied. I look upon copying as a sneaking way of sucking good men's brains. Yon have not an unlimited number of first-class works, and it is a thousand pities, and a; great mistake, that the authorities permit those few good works to be copied. It is positive sacrilege. Tbe value of the workare being greatly reduced. These pictures belong to the -public, I presume, and as one of the public I greatly object to the pictures not receiving proper protection. The custom of other countries may be quoted, but cannot alter the fact of its being a great mistake.—! am. etc.. Eg EXPERIENCE.,