> When a little child draws a tree for the first time, where do they draw inspiration? Do you think they were reviewing works of Picasso? Are we going to disco

> When a little child draws a tree for the first time, where do they draw inspiration? Do you think they were reviewing works of Picasso? Are we going to discount the hundreds to thousands of artistic pictures children are exposed to? Or how about the teacher sitting up front demonstrating to the class how to draw a tree? > Do you not have eyes, ears, do you not perceive and get inspiration from the natural world around you? Learning to see as an artist is a distinct skill. Being able to take the super compressed simplified world view that mind sees and put something recognizable on paper is a specialized skill that has to be developed. That skill is developed by doing it over and over again, often by copying the style of an artist that someone enjoys. Or to put it another way, go to any period in history prior to the mid 20th century and art in a given region starts to share the same style, dramatically so, because people were inspired by each other, almost to a comical extent. (Financial reasons also had something to do with it as well of course, Artists paint/carve/engrave/etc what sells!)