Its important to understand that the student came to his master with the goal of acquiring something, in this case knowledge, and once this is done, there is no point anymore for the student to be there unless there is no limit to the knowledge and practice of this certain field. Art is an ongoing experience of awe and wonder.
After fifty years of pursuing an art career and dabbling in all sorts of different trials and errors, I believe I can call myself an expert in the knowledge of drawing and painting. All this knowledge is stored in my hand-eye coordination as muscle memory. Adding my observation of what students over the years have taught me about their level of understanding has made me an experienced teacher and yet I am only starting to see my lack of knowledge.
The whole area is so vast and has so many challenges that it takes a life time to practice mastery. I did not know that when I started. Now I teach my students how enriching, troubling and definitely worth while the art world is. Somehow you need to make it your own and find your place in it, despite all disappointments and opinions of other people. If Picasso would have let other people dictate his works, we would not have known about him. At the same time it cannot not just be a marketing trick of some superficial actions.
The wisest teacher I had was my teacher typography who became an icon. He said he was not worried that the student would surpass his knowledge since he still was a student himself and as long he was engaged and filled with inspiration nobody could surpass him. He meant, there were no limitations to the field he was working in.
His field was narrowly restricted to the visual shape of letters. The field of drawing and painting is much larger than that.
