Imitation: To Copy and to Steal.

“Good artists copy, great artists steal,” said Picasso.

This quote suggests that stealing is a bold and powerful act, unlike mere copying, which is a timid imitation, a staying on the surface, an attempt to grasp only appearance. Stealing, in a way, seems nobler, higher. To steal is to seize the essence, the movement, the spirit. Yet, as striking as it is, this saying leaves an ambivalent impression. It dazzles with its wit, but it seems to glorify the sudden spark of genius, as if creation were born in a pure gesture, without history, without preparation. It makes one believe that the artist exists only through their power to surpass, to dominate. But then, what of the path? What of the years of training, the trials, the influences, the repeated gestures, the patient explorations?

Copying is neither weakness nor submission. It is a beginning. To copy is to learn to see differently. It means entering another’s hand, following their line, understanding their choices, feeling their rhythm. It means shaping one’s gaze, building a visual memory, sharpening sensitivity. It is forging supports, tools, gestures, a language.

Creation does not begin in the flash of genius, but in sustained, demanding, sometimes thankless work. One must start over, persist, move through doubt, fatigue, discomfort. One must accept to search without always finding, to act without always understanding. Copying is a living discipline, an inner tension. Not an erasure, but a construction.

And imitation does not happen apart from the world. It feeds on confrontation, on being put to the test. One must not wait for the perfect day to dare. Even in the midst of learning, one must risk exposure, face others’ eyes, criticism, limits. That is also how one grows: by testing oneself, by owning one’s clumsiness, by risking openness before being sure of one’s voice.

Then, little by little, something shifts. What was once faithfully reproduced begins to move, to change, to take a singular direction. Influence, when fully absorbed and lived through, becomes creation. The gesture departs from the model; the hand becomes one’s own.

To steal, then, is not an act of conquest. It is the sign that one has made a material, a spirit, a lineage one’s own. It is not a triumph, but a transformation. Not superiority, but passage. A flight.

There is no creation without imitation, no impulse without foundation. And perhaps the strength of an artist lies not in what they surpass, but in what they have known how to receive, traverse, and digest. The fire one makes one’s own is not a stolen fire—it is a cultivated one.