Imitator

“ But an imitator never puts ’em in: he doesn’t dare—he’s too intent on getting all the details correct. The imitator works with a self-consciousness and a meticulous care which the artist, in the throes of creative labor, never exhibits. ”

“ The maker has more knowledge than the imitator, but less than the user. Three arts, using, making, imitating. But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them—he knows their right form. ”

“ The poet being an imitator, like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects,—things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language,—either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors. ”

“ Suppose, next, that the child hears this person apply to himself the word "I": In this case too, the power of imitation would naturally (that is to say, letting it operate here in the same way as it did in the case of the table) lead the child to call that man "I."—But is this what the child does? No. As soon as he becomes conscious, he ceases, so far at least as the word "I" is concerned, to be an imitator. ”

“ It is in discussing and criticizing Professor Baldwin’s description of imitation as a circular process, that Mr. Irving King brings out two points of view from which we may regard imitation, that of the observer and that of the so-called imitator. Imitation, he says, is a term for the observer only, and not a term for psychology at all. Baldwin says that “real or persistent imitation is the reaction that will reproduce the stimulating impression and so tend to perpetuate itself.” ”

“ Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter. ”

“ When the original is well chosen, and judiciously copied, the imitator often arrives at excellence, which he could never have attained without direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means never tried before. ”

“ These living forms are, without any change, presented to observation in every age and country. There needs but opening the eyes, and these forms necessarily imprint themselves on the fancy; and the love of imitation, which naturally accompanies and keeps pace with this sense of beauty in the poet, is continually urging him to translate them into description. These descriptions will, indeed, have different degrees of colouring, according to the force of genius in the imitator ”

“ The more there is of character and feeling in any object, and the greater sympathy there is with it in the mind of the artist, the closer will be the affinity between the imitation and the thing imitated; as the more there is of character and expression in 290the object without a proportionable sympathy with it in the imitator, the more obvious will this defect and the imperfection of the copy become. ”

“ he is not so much an imitator, as an instrument, of nature; and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him. ”

“ I, rejoicing to find that he is overtaking me and longing to see him press on and become what I have always aspired to be, warn him, in a fatherly and friendly fashion, to consider carefully what he is about. An imitator must see to it that what he writes is similar, but not the very same ”

“ Contents THE RURAL SCHOOL CURRICULUM
Imitation.—There are two processes by which all progress is attained, namely, imitation and invention. Imitation is found everywhere, in all spheres of thought and of action. Children are great imitators, and adults are only children grown up. Imitation, of course, is a necessary thing. Without it no use could be made of past experience. When it conserves and propagates the good it is to be commended; but the worthless and the bad are often imitated also. ”

“ And as a general rule this delight we experience in the skill of imitation can only be of a restricted character; it becomes a man better to derive enjoyment from that which he brings to birth from himself. In this respect the invention of every insignificant technical product is of higher rank; and mankind may feel more proud at having invented the hammer, nail, and so forth, than in making themselves adepts as imitators. ”

“ Hence every new and original kind in literature produces a tribe of imitators, some of them contented imitators, who undersell the first author with colourable copies; others discontented imitators, or parodists, who offer their own substitute for the author's wares, yet stamp it with his brand. The compliment is the same in either case; and the effect is not much different, for nothing so quickly exhausts the popularity of a work of art as its power of multiplying its kind. ”

“ The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge?
True.
But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw? ”

“ Later on when he enters into what might be styled his matured sixteenth-century temperament, he seems to suffer from the same trouble as98 the imitators of the first third of the said century, namely, over-polish and mannerism, which must in fact have been considered an improvement in imitation. ”

“ Imitation of an imaged ideal, brought to the imitator through fiction, vivid history instruction, seeing a play, etc. 4. Imitation which is unconscious, usually under stress of high emotion—mob action. 364Of course the most common of these types of imitation is that of the common customs of the people who surround the young child. Otherwise it would mean little to a child to be born into a family in which gentle manners and kind deeds set a daily example fit to be followed closely. The manners of most children are those of their homes ”

“ He who is content merely to imitate must be content with impermanency. It is the creator and perfecter whom we most remember. Even the creator or the perfecter we remember. The mere imitators have their brief day and pass. Today we still read the work of the initiators, Lyly, Greene, Kyd. With pleasure we turn 63 the pages of Marlowe, Jonson, and Fletcher, not to mention Shakespeare. The dozens of mere imitators who had their little day are known only as names. ”

“ Heaven only knows how many thousands of imitators have followed in the wake of these and other great original artists; but who cares for the imitations? No one, unless they are so good that they can be palmed off on purchasers under cover of the mighty names. ”

“ Among the scores and scores of imitators, some of them having achieved considerable renown as such, the best of them have not succeeded further than giving their own impress to their tracing of the master's work. ”

“ Actors, like poets, have provincial parodists of their styles in even greater numbers, so adoringly imitative is humanity. Some day, Mike would have his imitators,--boys who pulled faces like his, and prided themselves on having the Laflin wrinkles; just as it was once the fashion for girls to look like Burne-Jones pictures, or young poets to imitate Mr. ”

“ I have said that the imitators of Shakespeare, fixing their attention on his wonderful gift of expression, have directed their imitation to this, neglecting his other excellences. ”

“ When I speak of the habitual imitation and continued study of masters, it is not to be understood that I advise any endeavour to copy the exact peculiar colour and complexion of another man's mind; the success of such an attempt must always be like his, who imitates exactly the air, manner, and gestures of him whom he admires. His model may be excellent, but the copy will be ridiculous; this ridicule does not arise from his having imitated, but from his not having chosen the right mode of imitation. ”

“ Will any one who really knows what art or education means complain of them for having imitated their models, however servilely? Will he not rather hail such an imitation as a fair proof, first of the student’s reverence for authority—a more important element of “genius” than most young folks fancy—and next, of his possessing any artistic power whatsoever? For, surely, if the greater contains the less, the power of creating must contain that of imitating. ”

“ When we come to the element of impersonation, we are nearer the heart of dramatic art, and perhaps deeper into the circle of the child's interests and instincts as well. Imitation is one of the absolute and fundamental aspects of a child's activities. It is impossible to escape calling it an instinct, when one sees that it is deeper and more universal than any impulse or tendency. The interpretation put by more recent psychologists upon the term and the fact of imitation throws a new and grateful light upon it as a principle in drama. ”

“ For my own part, I confess, I am not only very much disposed to maintain the absolute necessity of imitation in the first stages of the art; but am of opinion that the study of other masters, which I here call imitation, may be extended throughout our whole lives, without any danger of the inconveniences with which it is charged, of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from giving that original air which every work undoubtedly ought always to have. ”

“ Precision of eye and obedience of hand are the requisites of the former, without the least pretence to choice, what to select, what to reject; whilst choice directed by [23] judgment or taste constitutes the essence of imitation, and alone can raise the most dexterous copyist to the noble rank of an artist. The imitation of the ancients was, essential, characteristic, ideal. The first cleared nature of accident, defect, excrescence; the second found the stamen which connects character with the central form; the third raised the whole and the parts to the highest degree of unison. ”

“ Such a reply would be understood to mean that all imitation is identical with that which conscious or possibly self-conscious adult human beings find in themselves. Perhaps a more scholarly and certainly a more academic response to such a query as the above would be to ask in turn "what kind of imitation do you want to know about?" With such a way of acting, or of getting things done, as that of imitative functioning which is felt to occupy such a large place in both animal and human mental development there are very probably different stages or levels. ”

“ For imitation is a definite art of copying what you represent exactly after the model of the most beautiful things of nature, which you must take pure and free from the manner of your master or that of others, who also reduce to a manner the things that they take from nature. ”

“ By imitation, I do not mean imitation in its largest sense, but simply the following of other masters, and the advantage to be drawn from the study of their works.
Those who have undertaken to write on our art, and have represented it as a kind of inspiration, as a gift bestowed upon peculiar favourites at their birth, seem to insure a much more favourable disposition from their readers, and have a much more captivating and liberal air, than he who attempts to examine, coldly, whether there are any means by which this art may be acquired ”

“ The reputation for imitativeness, together with the quality itself, is due in no small degree, therefore, to the long-continued dominance of the feudal order of society. In a land where the dependence of the inferior on the superior is absolute, the wife on the husband, the children on the parents, the followers on their lord, the will of the superior being ever supreme, individual initiative must be rare, and the quality of imitation must be powerfully stimulated.
XVII ORIGINALITY—INVENTIVENESS
Originality is the obverse side of imitation. ”

“ The second result of this imitative learning about personality is of equal importance. When [90] the child has taken up an action by imitation and made it subjective, finding out that personality has an inside, something more than the mere physical body, then he reads this fact back into the other persons also. He says to himself: "He too, my little brother, must have in him a sense of agency similar to this of mine. He acts imitatively, too; he has pleasures and pains; he shows sympathy for me, just as I do for him. ”

“ But the final clause of the proposition, that imitation of the past heralds approaching dissolution, is demonstrably untrue of every great epoch of artistic activity. A fearless spirit of imitation, born of the worship yielded to the achievements of an earlier time, may, on the contrary, be claimed as the hall-mark of genius, and is indeed most frankly confessed in the work of men of unchallenged supremacy. ”

“ In what little I have yet here to suggest as to the psychological importance of imitation as a basis for our developed consciousness, both of ourselves, of our rational powers, whereby we pretend to know truth, and of our external world, I must confess my great indebtedness to the suggestions contained in what my valued friend and colleague, Professor Baldwin, has already published concerning the imitative functions—those so familiar and yet, from the psychological side, so sadly neglected functions, neglected until Tarde and Professor Baldwin began these researches. ”