The context of my work - How instrumental is it?

For my MA studio proposal, I intended to and still might produce a potted history of portraiture to give context to the work I intend to make this summer counter intuitive to make a meaningful proposal particularly in art, or at least the form of art I make. However in many ways it has no bearing on my work and the reasons I make it, I am aware of the history of the various genre's I work in, the portraiture, life drawings and paintings on canvas, the sketch book drawings, the landscapes I make when on holiday, but they are not an active reaction to the history. I am conscious of history, my skills, techniques and subjects build on methods and history but the true reason I make the work is because I want to. I draw things from life as a semi meditative process, because I like to, I have drawn since I was about seven, partly as a way to analyse the world  and partly because it was something I could be good at.