Standing on Giants’ Shoulders

Flora Yunkovich inspired and transforned by Watteau

Why the Best Contemporary Artists Look Back to Move Forward

By Martin Kinnear Studio

In an age of instant visibility and endless scrolling, it’s easy to assume that the most successful contemporary artists are the ones making the loudest noise. But scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find something different. The truly consequential artists of our time—those with staying power—aren’t chasing trends. They’re chasing lineage.

From Cecily Brown’s carnivalesque painterly explosions to Adrian Ghenie’s shadow-soaked psychological portraits, the most resonant artists today are those who understand that making new art means having a meaningful conversation with the old.

The Art of Looking Back

It’s not about copying the past. It’s about engaging with it.

Artists like Ghenie, Saville, and Brown don’t just admire the masters—they study them. They explore their methods, unpack their visual languages, and find ways to metabolise historical technique into contemporary form.

• Ghenie draws deeply from the texture and drama of Rembrandt and Bacon, constructing psychologically layered narratives that look backwards even as they confront modern trauma.

• Jenny Saville, famed for her monumental nudes, absorbs the anatomical obsession of the Renaissance and the gestural urgency of Abstract Expressionism.

• Cecily Brown swims in the wake of Rubens, De Kooning, and the Baroque, her brushwork vibrating with references even as it breaks them apart.

This isn’t nostalgia. It’s strategic inheritance. These artists understand that innovation is richer when it’s rooted in something substantial.

What unites them? Each has invested deeply in how painting works—not just as a medium, but as a language.

This is exactly the kind of historical engagement we teach in our Diploma and Advanced Oils courses: not just copying, but conversing with the masters.

Case Study: Tracey Emin and Edvard Munch

Emin/ Munch at the RA

One of the more surprising and profound pairings in recent years is Tracey Emin’s creative relationship with Edvard Munch. On the surface, Emin—the enfant terrible of the YBA era—and Munch—the haunted Norwegian symbolist—may not seem like natural bedfellows. But look closer, and the link is almost inevitable.

Emin has spoken at length about Munch’s raw emotional honesty—his fear, his loneliness, his obsession with love and death. In 2021, Emin was invited to exhibit alongside Munch in Norway’s new Munch Museum in Oslo. Rather than compete, she conversed. Her drawings and paintings, some scrawled in charcoal or bathed in murky pinks, echoed the unflinching vulnerability that Munch made his signature.

This wasn’t mimicry. It was mutual recognition across time. Emin said, “It’s as though he’s given me permission to do certain things.” That kind of permission—to be raw, to be unresolved, to be obsessive—is only available to artists willing to enter into a deep, personal dialogue with art history.

The Seduction of Surface: A Cautionary Tale

Now, contrast that with the other end of the spectrum—the world of clickbait art. You’ve seen it: shiny, empty images designed to go viral on Instagram. The ones that look good on a phone but say nothing to the soul. Neon slogans, predictable irony, AI-generated nonsense with no authorship, no brushwork, no history.

This kind of work isn’t just shallow. It’s disposable.

Sure, it might rack up likes. But it contributes nothing to the ongoing dialogue of art. It holds no cultural capital because it’s not in conversation with anything—no technique, no history, no lineage. It’s visual fast food. And like fast food, it leaves no lasting nourishment.

As painter Luc Tuymans once said, “Painting is about time, not speed.” And time means depth—in thought, in technique, and in cultural memory.

Why This Matters for Serious Painters

At the Martin Kinnear Studio, we don’t believe in nostalgia. But we do believe in lineage. You don’t need to recreate the past—but you should know how it was made. You should understand how Rembrandt handled shadow, how Titian built flesh, how Freud dragged paint across skin.

Because when you engage with the techniques and visual philosophies of those who came before you, your own work becomes part of something bigger. You gain access to tools—not just physical ones, but conceptual and emotional tools—that give your practice weight.

You stop making images. You start making art.

Building Your Own Legacy

So what does this mean for you as a developing painter?

It means that learning to paint isn’t just about acquiring skills—it’s about locating yourself within an ecosystem of ideas, traditions, and visual knowledge.

• In the Advanced Oils programme, we teach the nuanced handling, layering, and optical techniques that powered centuries of painting, right through the colour revolution of 1874 whivh became Modern Art and beyond.

• In the Diploma course, we guide students through structured, historically grounded training that connects classical foundations with contemporary innovation.

You’ll study not just how to paint—but why painters have made certain choices for hundreds of years, and how you can meaningfully adapt that legacy for your own voice.

Final Thought: Legacy Over Likes

Great contemporary artists aren’t looking for quick fame. They’re looking for continuity, for depth, for resonance. They know that to make art that lasts, you have to be in dialogue with what has lasted.

So before chasing your next ‘likeable’ canvas, ask yourself: what tradition are you contributing to? Who are you talking to across time? And most importantly—what do you want your art to mean?

Want to build the kind of practice that endures?At Martin Kinnear Studio, we teach not just how to paint—but how to think as a painter, in the tradition of those who shaped the visual world. Join our courses and find your place in the continuum. check out our programs and take your place in the conversation

Courses