The Student and the Master

I wrote this a while ago, about a lesson which was very personal to me. Only had the guts to post it now.



Outstanding artists are often prodigies. My son is a potential example of this. Because he lives and breathes his art scholarship, he is spending most of his spare time in the art room, ably assisted and advised by the super-tea-drinking Hogwarts art teacher. She sees more of him than I do at the moment. This is inevitable, and he is producing some amazing work as a result.

But not all relationships between student and master are as healthy as this one. Sometimes, the teacher may become attached to the student, particularly where the student is grown up and the age-gap is smaller. Because the two spend so much time together, locked in a common passion for art, in some cases the relationship may develop a more emotional and mental dimension.

The student of course worships the master, is in awe of him and wants to suck as much as knowledge as possible from his idol. The teacher must hold that awe in trust, see it for what it is, and use it carefully as a way of nourishing and encouraging the student. Being an artist or photographer, and usually a pretty good one, the teacher can use his own influence, personal knowledge and experience as a method of successfully teaching his pupil.

As a method of teaching, this is very necessary. The greatest gift a teacher can offer a student is his experience of his own life as a working photographer or artist. Teaching art is not just about teaching technique. It is about imparting personal life’s experiences, views and even emotions about the teacher’s life as an artist. Through his own experience, the teacher can encourage the student to not only learn the raw craft, but also how to overcome that student’s insecurities, fears and how to nourish that grain of creativity that will make that student the best that he or she can ever be. As a result, master and student develop a unique bond, a relationship and intellectual intimacy which is part artistic, and part personal. This closeness is inevitable, especially with a prodigy. The teacher recognises a special gift in the student, and concentrates on developing that potential into something partly shaped by the student, but largely steered by the teacher. The student’s finished art will therefore reflect both his own views, personality and ideas, and also those of his teacher.

But what happens when that grain of potential is successfully nourished into something amazing? What happens when the student has learned all he or she can possibly learn from the teacher? What happens when the student surpasses the master? Outgrows him? Does the master pat the prodigy on the back and wave him “Farewell. Go with God my son. Go forth into the world and produce amazing art!”

Well, if the teacher is a good one, that’s exactly what should happen. But what if the teacher has crossed the professional line and has become attached to the student? What if their relationship is “special?”

In such circumstances, the teacher may not be able to let go of the relationship. He needs the student, he needs to feel that the student still needs him, adores him, can still learn from him. He needs that “awe”. But the awe is gone forever. The student is now a successful artist in his or her own right, and is grateful for the tuition of course, but now wants to explore his own creative vision, by himself. There is nothing more that can be learned from the teacher.

The teacher resents this, is jealous of the student’s success, feels rejected , and in some (unfortunate) cases, I have seen the master copy the student’s work, steal the student’s ideas and claim them as his own. The teacher may be feeling abandoned, vulnerable and empty of inspiration. He feels that the student’s work is amazing, innovative and partly his own anyway, because his artistic vision was taught to and reflected through his student, and they may well have come up with the ideas through conversations they have had together in the past. So because he helped inspire the student’s art, the teacher feels he can therefore use the student’s ideas, because the vision belongs to both of them. The teacher cannot let go of his prodigy.

This is an example of an unhealthy relationship. One that has strayed beyond student and professional teacher. All too often, it results in resentment, a complete destruction of the intimate relationship between the two, and a severance of the emotional bond they once had.

Although this is immensely sad and tragic, it happens all the time.

Such is the nature of relationship between art and passion, master and prodigy.

Because artists are human too.



The images are of Claire Louisa.