28/9/06 - History of Art - The Artist

E Fernie, Rebels and Martyrs: The Changing Status of the Artist.
www.groveart.co.uk

1. Historical concept of individual artist: Medieval craftsman to Romantic genius.
2. Emphasis of art history on individual artist.
3. Market value of the artist.
4. Problems and alternatives.

Van Gogh. Self-portrait. Detroit: Van Gogh conforms to artist as 'outsider'; curator's explanation for success of Van Gogh's exhibition. Individual creator is a modern perception, used to be a 'humble craftsman'.

Phidias, famous classical Greek sculptor.
Also, by Polyclitus. Interested in symmetry of human body.
The Doryphorus. Both famous for successful workshops. Regarded as artisans; alongside barbers, blacksmiths, cooks, etc.

Stoics always acknowledged artists able to experience great inspiration.

1300s - books published about biographical side of artists.

Artists generally placed in guilds, workshops. Working for church or nobility. Sculptors put in workshops with carpenters, jewellers, etc., depending on city. Each city had own style. Florence first challenged artistic laws. Brunelleschi (designed Cupola of Duoma, Florence). He had a new consciousness of perception of artists. Albeti published first book stating artists should be elevated above craftsmen. Intellectual, polished, virtuous. Renaissance artists - long periods of work alone.

Later writer stressed biography of artists as separate from everyday craftsmen.

Vasari enhanced visions of artists. Character traits. Prolonged periods of reflection.

Leonardo worked dawn to dusk, forgetting to eat and for many days standing round in deep thought doing nothing.

Vasari believed artists should blend into society. Admired Raphael in terms of dignity, beauty, etc.

Mid 1500s. Adopted rational, elevated view of artists. Artists placed amongst nobility. Artists' self-portraits show them as successful worldly men, e.g. Rubens, Bernini. Sir Joshua Reynolds (first president, Royal Academy). Knighted for contribution to art. Self-portrait: proud, bust of Michelangelo, associated with Rembrandt. Celebrity status, shown by funeral.

Romantic artists struggled for freedom from Royal Academy. Break from rational artist to fantasy painting, e.g. Blake. Ancient of Days and Glad Day.

Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818.
Henry Wallis, Death of Chatterton, 1856.
Romantic notions of suicide.
Leonardo Alenza y Nieto, Satire on Romantic Suicide, 1839.
Delacroix, Michelangelo in his Studio. Solitary, melancholic.
Courbet, Man with a Pipe. Realism. But Romantic view, rebel.
Gauguin, Christ in the Garden of Olives, 1889. Solitary genius. Represents himself as Christ, a loner.
Van Gogh, Self-Portrait, Bandaged Ear, 1889. Tortured genius.
Pollock, Drip Painting. Isolation, self-awareness. "When I'm in my painting I'm not aware of what I'm doing."

Emphasis of art history on individual artists.

Books study artists' biography and works in-depth.

A move towards formalism.

Catalogue raisonne. Detailed chronological catalogue of works.

Monographic exhibition catalogue. These are more popular than mixed exhibitions.

Awarding of prizes places emphasis on individual artists.

Films celebrate lives of individual artists. Pollock. Surviving Picasso. I Shot Andy Warhol.

Market value.
$82.5 million for Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr Gachet, 1890. Year he shot himself, his psychiatric doctor.

In 2004, $104.17 million. Picasso, Garcon a la Pipe, 1905. Picasso regarded as significant figure in twentieth-century art.

$135 million, Klimt's Portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1907. Popular, accessible. Court case, belonged to Jewish family, publicity.

Pollock, Warhol, etc. valuable work.

$11.65 million, Pollock.

Raphael Madonna and the Pinks. Concluded genuine according to style, scientific examination.

Zandomeneghi, In Bed, 1878.

Celebrating avant-garde too much?
What about artists that were contemporarily popular, e.g. Bouguereau, Art and Literature. Zandomeneghi, etc.

Chicago led group of artists, proclaimed art as group activity.
Feminist art. Lipstick bathroom.
The Dinner Party. Thirty-nine mythical female figures set in triangle (female shape). Emily Dickinson.