The critique exercise is, I think, different from the creative process and the "internalization through practice" skills development, the loss of which is being lamented. In the studio/atelier setting, the model would be sitting there, and the instructor would indeed point out every single detail of difference between the model and the drawing or painting. Over time, there would be less and less difference in each new work. That doesn't mean that any art has been created. It means that you have developed the tools to create art.
But we're not in a studio setting here and so the best substitute for looking at a model is to look at whatever reference photo a member may have chosen to post. I look at those photos not as images in themselves, instrinsically worthy of slavish copying, but as if they were indeed the model. It's a lousy substitute, but it's all we have here. And if the photo image is aesthetically or artistically better than the drawing or painting, I point that out. I don't believe anyone has ever insisted that the photo image be copied in all its details, if those details are flawed. I know that I very often add a caveat that modifications are not suggested for the purpose of duplicating the photo, but because they will in fact enhance the drawing or painting, as by, for example, better representing form or a value design.
If a photo image in fact contains useful information that a student artist has failed to see -- which happens quite often, however poor the average reference photo -- then any critique worth the price of admission should point that out. Entirely different exercises are involved as between saying "This isn't artistically pleasing," and pointing out that "This isn't accurate."
If the student artist does not want comments on accuracy, but only on "artistry" or aesthetics, I'd prefer that the reference photo not even be posted, for it then becomes irrelevant. Copying the photo is never the point. It is a resource. It isn't art, any more than a live model is art, nor is a copy of it. The only chance for art is what we make of it.
Again, if accuracy isn't a concern, and if one is confident that a drawing or painting successfully includes all the "good" information in the reference photograph, I see no point in including the photo in the critique request.
I think the uses of photography are getting a bit muddled here, so that we're posting at cross purposes to some degree.
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Hybrid Mode
