Why students should (attempt) to copy great works of art

Concerns about having students copy great works of art are many and valid; fear of training for plagiarism, students not learning to explore their own individual way of using the materials for just two examples.
However I recently read in an article on art restoration the following:
“(Artists are)…the only ones who really look at art. Restorers, meanwhile, are absorbed with technical data, art historians are nursed on bright back-lit slides and immersed in antiquarian arcane, journalists parrot or sift what they’re told, and the public is dazzled by bright colors.” Eric Scigliano, Inglorious Restorations in Harper's Magazine August 2005.
When I read the quote above my thought went to the film Amélie where the “Glass Man” repeatedly copied Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and commented that he was unable to properly reproduce the picture of the actress Ellen Andrée in the painting. In compulsively painting and repainting this masterpiece he was able to “see” Luncheon of the Boating Party so deeply as to critique his own work on a level not visible to people who are not acquainted with the painting as intimately as he grew to be.
So here is my reasoning for having students attempt to copy a masterpiece. In copying a work a student can develop a sense of how minimal the technique and materials used to convey an image. Students often attempt to overcome deficits in a work by increasing elaboration and filling in with more materials. Art is famously minimalist, the great artist creates a great image with a minimal amount of material and application. The students can discover this by reproducing the effects for themselves.
The student can attempt to view the world from a famous artist’s perspective.
The justification for this can be seen as teaching the student use of material and technique, what did the original artist use as a base, a layer of black?, and how did the artist build up from the base, hints of white and light color on the black background? What was the original perspective? Where does the light originate? How is shadow used to reveal boundaries and borders?
I believe the students will learn to truly see into a painting and be able to better analyze all paintings they come into contact with by experiencing the details of a painting through reproduction in a structured classroom setting under the supervision of an instructor to counsel, direct and explain.
Why did the artist choose this image from all the images around him to paint?
Why this perspective? Is it of the visual orientation of an equal (an ordinary spectator), a superior (from above) or a viewer from below (suggesting the object of the painting to be superior or exalted)?
I believe that training students to copy the “great works” has the potential to teach numerous important lessons, instill a framework for the student to study and appreciate works not yet encountered and provide a context for an ongoing conversation between student and instructor as to the decisions artists make and the decisions for them.

Read our July essay: Hiddent Clues in Works of Art
Read our June essay: The Mathematics of Art
Read our May essay: The Importance of School Art Competitions
Read our January essay : Art History and the Internet
Read our March essay: Ink Jet Printers and the Color Wheel:
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