The importance of copying

The lunatics were once in charge of the asylum. The first six directors of the National Gallery were all artists: before art history became an academic discipline, artists were the leading authorities on art.

Founded more as a teaching resource than a visitor attraction, until the mid-1940s the gallery was reserved for artists two days a week, when other visitors had to pay for entry. This stopped them getting in the way of artists copying from the masters, an essential part of an art education in the days before cheap colour reproduction.

It’s rare to see artists copying in the galleries now that they are so jam-packed with tourists. As long ago as 1980, David Hockney wrote to the then director Michael Levey asking permission to copy a Van Gogh in the basement, as to be ‘stood in the N.G.