“Good artists copy,” said Pablo Picasso, “great artists steal.” Perhaps he didn’t give enough credit to the copyists. Copying has been central to artistic tradition since the Middle Ages, when it was a way to absorb the canon and master technique. Indeed, medieval artists thought invention was unnecessary; to take an oft-told story or an archetypal image and make it your own, that was the higher achievement. Only in the modern era, just before Picasso’s time, did copying begin to lose its value. “A painting requires a little mystery,” said Edgar Degas, “some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.” A meditation on imitation and the creative act, this exhibition in Metz invites artists to copy works from the Louvre—any era, any style—through the lens of their own imagination. —Elena Clavarino