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Technology vs observation: the big question facing art’s future

Tech offers new ways to create art, a London show makes clear, but it may compromise life drawing – and the honest observation at the heart of all great work

13 December 2017

Life drawing class — In the flesh
Elena Olivo, © Brooklyn Museum

When the schools of London’s Royal Academy of Arts were opened in 1769, life drawing — the business of sketching either live models or the plaster casts of worthy sculptures — was an essential component of an artist’s training.

As I wandered around , an exhibition devoted to the history as well as the future of the practice, I overheard a curator explaining that, now life drawing is no longer obligatory in Royal Academy art courses, a new generation of artists are approaching the practice in a “more expressive” way. The…

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