In copying this 1806 Ingres painting, entitled La Grande Baigneuese, I initially found myself distractedly absorbing the work of art (rather than being absorbed by it). The entire act of copying the work with the help of the grid felt particularly mechanical, and, ultimately, quite unfulfilling. However, as soon as my figure began to take shape (and I consequently became increasingly less frustrated by my inability to render the figure to scale), I found myself being absorbed by the work itself. I became enthralled by Ingres' delicate, velvety rendering of the bather's skin, and as I focused on shadowing her person, my mimetic task quickly became a fulfilling one.
It's not an exact replica, for I really only focused on the figure herself (a figure that Ingres, interestingly enough, seems to have been particularly obsessed with throughout his career). Indeed, Ingres returned to the form of this figure several times throughout his life...and so I wonder what aural quality my own duplica-of-sorts takes on in its subconscious illumination of the original artist's fascination.
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