The Changing Status of the Artist

How our modern notion of artistic “genius” came into being

Self-portrait or “Philosophy” (c.1645) by Salvator Rosa. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London. Image source Wikimedia Commons. The Latin inscription reads, “Be quiet, unless your speech be better than silence.”

The word artist has an illustrious ring about it. From Michelangelo to Mozart, we tend to think of artists as individuals in possession of special gifts of creativity. Deeply intertwined is the notion of “genius” — suggestive of some sort of exquisite sensibility integral to artistic creation.

Yet artists weren’t always considered in this way. The journey from artisan to artist began with the medieval guild system in which a “masterpiece” had a very different meaning compared with today.

Artist as craftsman

The old European guild system was an important part of the social fabric in European towns and cities between the 11th and 16th centuries.

A guild was an association of craftsmen or merchants, usually focused on a specific craft like leather-working or metal-smithing. Guilds were formed for professional reasons, partly to maintain standards of quality in the crafts they produced and partly for the economic protection of the craftsmen themselves.

To qualify for membership of a guild, the apprentice usually had to present a “masterpiece” — an example of their very best work — as proof of their skill.