Art techniques are a lot like the sport of golf. They have a very low entry point, so that practically anyone can participate. There are professional vs. amateur players, where occasional doodling for fun could be compared to mini golf. In golf, there are many players that practice Tiger Woods’ swing, and use his clubs, and they’re doing the same thing as him… but they’re not Tiger Woods. It’s because they are creating an excellent copy of Tiger Woods, but something’s wrong…

Even an excellent copy of the master is first a copy. It’s the same thing in Art. You can learn Rembrandt’s technique, it’s not lost. However, that doesn’t mean you can paint just like Rembrandt. He was a master of that particular technique, meaning if you are already very talented at art and techniques, you have a chance of producing copies of his works. Rembrandt’s peers and students were also very good, but they had the advantage of seeing the master work in person. This is why students of great painters are often great themselves. But they still weren’t the exact same as Rembrandt, in the same way that no two snowflakes are the same, despite the same process being involved in creating all of them.

If you want to be great at art, you have to see it in person, but then accept differences in your technique as your own style, and not as some shortcoming. Thus, your work will not be the “copy of” a master, but the advancement in new directions of a great teacher.