Art: Talent and Skill

If it is one thing that I'm tired of seeing, it has to be the closed-minded talent unbelievers, especially when it comes to art. There IS a such thing as talent. It's not my fault that you're too trapped in a box to realize that it exists. I hate it so much when people are so stubborn and can't understand the reasoning I tell them. Talent is not a religion therefore it shouldn't have been a controversial topic.

I will briefly mention art so there are not tutorials or anything, just my insights. Oh, I'm guessing that this is a good category as it's not quite personal since I want to get my thoughts out there.


1. "Talent" is often misused as "skill".
This should be avoided at all costs. I see people justifying talent in place of skill for why they can't get better at art. Saying that someone has more "talent" than you even though you haven't been practicing is the worst thing you could possibly do using such a word. This is an appropriate time to reevaluate yourself and your study habits and get to work. Who knows, you may blow the "talented" people out of the water if you work hard enough.

2. "Talent" is a separate entity.
I get really tired of people who destroy the meaning of talent and then put their misguided "opinions" out there without looking it up any. I comprehend talent as something that is a great addition to skill. It is like extra credit on a test when you can do above average on everything. That extra credit boosts your score to get a better grade, you see? There is a difference between someone who has real, raw "talent" and is a highly skilled artist and then you just get the basic highly skilled person. The talented artist will have taken it upon themselves to get to an even more advanced level of feeling and devotion to this practice while your average highly skilled artist will have artwork that is missing this certain "something".

3. "Talent" is like "potential" and "intelligence".
If at an early age you can tell someone has an interest in something like art for example, the child may be showing an advanced perception of the things around them when they start doodling. You know, everything looks like it makes sense and it's not just a mere scribble. This is one way to tell that this particular child has the potential to become a great artist (and this is from personal experience when I was little lol). If the child has an exponential interest in art and has the proper mindset, then they may be talented as talent is not skill but like an easy way to higher education. Why else are there schools for gifted students? Are you going to tell me that they all should be eradicated?

4. "Talent" does NOT equal "lazy".
People often misinterpret talent as being lazy. If you are talented or if you learn things faster and better than others, this does NOT give you any reason to slack off. As a gifted person, you are supposed to take it upon YOURSELF to STUDY and get an even BETTER education compared to the average person who has to work ten times as hard to reach your level. The faster you learn, the more inclined you should be to take in more information quicker and utilize it to the best of your abilities.

5."Talent" is in NO way a substitution for practice and hard work.
Yeah, keep believing that it is. It's wrong and because of this mentality, people don't believe that it exists in the first place. You have to WORK to get better at art. Like I said, the talent just helps you get a better grasp on things compared to your average artists.

6. People must stop thinking talent does NOT exist.
Just because it took you longer to learn something compared to another person doesn't make you a bad person. We are all different and we all learn differently and at different paces. But for people to just dismiss this innate ability as nothing when they lack it themselves is going too far.


In the end, talent is REAL and people are constantly dismissing it as if it doesn't exist. This is like an art teacher saying that "manga" and "anime" are not art when all they have been doing is looking at badly drawn "manga" and "anime" as examples justifying this and overlooking the fact that excellent examples exist.

Well, anyway, it is not all right to say that talent doesn't exist. The only problem I have with it is that people use it as a substitution for skill and practice when it is not that.

I know full well that we ALL have to work HARD to achieve ALL of our goals and it sickens me how people don't believe in diversity. We ALL learn differently and there is NOTHING wrong with that. If you have to study something one hundred times to understand, then fine, do that. But don't get jealous of someone capable of getting it in only three to five times if that much. Some people have to work a lot harder than others to get to different artistic goals and any other goals for that matter and that is NORMAL. Though we may be different, we are ALL the same in that regard.

Thank you, and happy commenting.

If you're not talented, don't be afraid to work harder. If you are talented, you had better work hard, too.