TALENT (myth or fact)

[Adam Lina]

Well I dont believe you master line work in a few weeks, sure. But the difference is much more subtle than comparing my anatomical knowledge to someone whos practiced it for 10 years. Yet we both can draw a straight line. And a surgeon knows what a face looks like but he has no concept of perspective. I think you might be surprised at how well a surgeon would draw a face actually since they have to practice very precise hand movements in order to preform surgery and not kill people.

"I know a painter with like 40 years of experience and you should see his lines:) He could draw a scribble, some amoeba-like shape and we would all stare in wonder at the craftmanship of that amoeba scribble. He wouldn't have to draw a muscled human in perspective or a beautiful tree."

And what you're talking about is not that this person has greater control over his lines but that he has a stronger sense of design. This can also apply to Ursula's line work. Shes Designing her lines better is the difference. She conceptualizes the line before making it and more thought goes into it. It even seems automatic to a person but its still a mental practice.

[Doolio]

But if your anatomical knowledge is passive, you could be a great art critic and notice tiny mistakes or maybe teach anatomy, but you still wouldn't be able to draw that anatomy, because you don't have practice. For example, you could learn enough anatomy for, say, average level of character design (so no detailed muscle knowledge but rather a simplified skeleton and large muscle groups and how they behave) in like three weeks. You simply watch, learn, remember, like with any other subject. But in order to lay that knowledge on paper, you need practice. There's far more practice in the sense of application when it comes to developing art skills than theory.

Also, I think this could be an interesting point - when drawing from a reference, why does a beginner make horrible mistakes in shapes, sizes, ratios, value? He has it right there, he doesn't need to visualize anything, just to get your hand interpret what he sees. I am not talking about line quality or finesse of strokes. His eye differentiates probably the same amount of values as that of Artgerm or some other artist. He sees things correctly, they aren't elongated or have incorrect ratios when he looks at them.
And a person with 5y of practice is still making mistakes and a person with 10y of practice is still making mistakes, but less than the person with 5y of practice.

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And what you're talking about is not that this person has greater control over his lines but that he has a stronger sense of design.

No, I am not talking about design. I know what you mean, that he makes better line quality decisions and stuff like that. I am talking about pure physical control. The same kind of control a juggler has and you and I don't, because he juggles all the time. And even if we are talking about line quality, calligraphy etc. it's again a product of years of practice of movements.
I wouldn't be able to replicate his line with my hand even if he would explain it to me and gave me a lecture about that singe line and it's width at every point etc. and I would analyze it for ten hours and drew that line a thousand times within that ten hours (I might exaggerate a bit to make a point).

[Adam Lina]

Well those are interesting points and I guess we could agree to disagree after all because I could literally go on forever retorting lol. We seem to have gotten off the topic of the thread but I find this topic much more interesting than whether talent exists :D... I think I shall make a NEW THREAD!

[Doolio]

I could literally go on forever retorting lol

Well, same here:) That's why I kept it short with my first post, as I assumed it could go on forever:)
And the thing we aren't actually sitting somewhere and talking to each other, but wall of texting across the internet with only written messages adds some inevitable difficulty too:)
Not to mention that we should be drawing lol:D

[Ursula Dorada]

(woo I'll be in the new thread when I get home then! yay. I want to talk about visual vocabulary! Its not only important to KNOW your subject, if you don't know how to represent that on paper, you will fall short. Like the aforementioned surgeon)

[Madzia]

I see the whole disagreement between artists about talent goes simply to what do you think TALENT means.
I always thought Talent mean God-given ability that only chosen-ones gets. That's what mediocre person thinks. That's what thinks my aunty when she's commenting my painting "oh you're so talented" she is thinking "I do not believe I can create anything like this ever". And in this definition Talent is complete bullsh*

If you mean talent by somebody who have better start... well just move yourself to the same spot in time when both of you are starting (forget about the age) and after same amount of time practicing you are "same talented". Maybe different in way of the subjects you paint. You're painting better in perspective, other person paints better organics. But both of you will impress mediocre person.
so even in this definition talent doesn't really exist simple because there is no unified definition of talented artist. How can you compere art of Leyendecker and Bouguereau? Is one of them more talented than other? Or them to Syd Mead? When do talent starts? Only in group of unequal people when you are compering each other to another. Take "talented" person from one group and move it to more advanced one and "talent" is no more present. Am I getting this right?

[hessa11]

yes, talent does really exist.

[Amit Dutta]

I think talent is distinguishable from skill. One is not the other. If you consider your art journey as a plane or maybe rocket flight, I've always considered talent as determing the "ceiling" (highest possible altitude) of one's flight potential as well as determining the power of your engine. If you are more "talented" you may get to soar higher than others, and you may be able to get up there quicker because of your more powerful engine. You still need the will to point your plane upwards, and keep striving for the ceiling. If you have talent and you just slowly meander around on the breeze wafting wherever, expecting to get to your ceiling... then forget it, your talent will get you nowhere.
Talent without desire and dedication means nothing. This approach I find takes some of the comparison of talent out of the equation. We all have our talent ceiling and engine, how far are you willing to go to max them out?

[Doolio]

If you consider your art journey as a plane or maybe rocket flight, I've always considered talent as determing the "ceiling" (highest possible altitude) of one's flight potential as well as determining the power of your engine.

I see it the same way. And as for the ceiling, I really think that if the most talented person ever ever ever uses "significant amount of time and resources" (whatever that means), that person would fly to, say, 30 000 m. And if the most utterly talentless person ever ever ever does exactly the same, that person would fly to like 28 000 m. Of course, the engine would make the talented guy go to 5000 m pretty fast, with the talentless guy struggling at 250 m, but that's it, the more they work, the more close they get.

[Adam Lina]

All it comes down to is that it shouldnt matter to anyone if talent exists or not. To me this whole question is something thought up by a person whos uncertain about what they want and theyre trying to make up excuses. Either you want to be good at art and your willing to go through what it takes or you're too lazy/dont want it that bad. Whether or not you were born with magical art powers is totally out of your hands. If a person born with no hands decided they were going to be a painter and use their feet, theres no reason why they couldnt become extremely skilled at painting in that way. To anyone thinking talent is an issue Id say you need to gain some perspective on life and what you really want out of it.

[manal18]

so whats every one knows that talent must be exists although in matter...!