Foucault, like Barthes, examines the idea of the author.

In "What is an Author,"
Foucault outlines the roles and functions of an author. He says that "The funct
ion of an author is to characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of
certain discourses within a society" (Foucault, 124).
Another function of the author is appropriation. Presence of an author's name gi
ves a certain meaning to a text. For example, the name 'Shakespeare' prompts cer
tain expectations for a reader. One may think know that Shakespeare is considere
d to be one of the greatest poets in the English langauge. Thus, when a play suc
h as Titus Andronicus, a vastly inferior play, is examined, one tends to disbeli
eve that Shakespeare wrote the play. Many critics indeed support the notion that
Shakespeare did not write Titus.
Foucault summarizes what he sees as the four main characteristics of the author
function as follows:
"The 'author-function' is tied to legal and institutional systems that circumscr
ibe, determine, and articulate the realm of discourses; it does not operate in a
uniform manner in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture; it is
not defined by the spontaneus attribution of a text to its creator, but through
a series of precise and complex procedures; it does refer, purely and simply, t
o an individual insofar as it simultaneously gives rise to a variety of egos and
to a series of subjective positions that individuals of any class may come to o
ccupy" (Foucault, 130-31).
======================
Barthes and Foucault on Authorship
Courtney Kaohinani Rowe, English 111, 1999
Barthes in "Authors and Writers" and Foucault in "What is an Author" both give a
mixed definition of what an author is and should be. They first set up an autho
r as a person who loses both himself and the world in his creation of a text, an
d then they define him as someone who takes responsibility for this very text.
Barthes, true to the title of his essay, defines his conception of an author by
contrasting it with his conception of a writer. A writer is someone with a goal
who uses language to convey his ideas, ignoring the properties of that language.
"He does not admit that his message is reflexive"and that we can read into it,
diacritically, anything else but what he means" (Barthes 189-190). An author, on
the other hand, is almost the polar opposite. Not only does he use language for
its own sake, but his language specifically "inaugurates an ambiguity," answeri
ng no questions, concluding no goals. Beyond this, where the text of the writer
exists to fulfill the wishes of the writer himself, it seems that the text of th
e author exists separate from the author himself, and, in fact, consumes him. Ba
rthes claims that "the author is the only man, by definition, to lose his own st
ructure and that of the world in the structure of language"hence, it can never e
xplain the world" (187.)
Foucault, as well, mentions this loss of the author and the world to the text. C
ontemporary writing, he says, "is primarily concerned with creating an opening w
here the writing subject endlessly disappears" (Foucault 116.) Also, he speaks o
f the "kinship between writing and death" (116), which in modern day has become
"a voluntary obliteration of the self" the total effacement of the individual ch
aracteristics of the writer" (117).
Amusingly enough, however, is that both Barthes and Foucault after setting up th
eir authors as vessels for the expression of text, who, as they focus on languag
e itself and greater philosophical questions, remove themselves and the world th

ey know from writing include in their definition of an author the need to take r
esponsibility within society for the written text. Barthes speaks of writers as
people who must work through other institutions to propose their thought (Barthe
s 190), while authors are at society's mercy, to be exalted or ridiculed (189) a
nd in this vein, Barthes asks that the author be "responsible" (188).
Foucault mentions that texts only needed the author's name once they became open
to criticism, which would result in the "punishment" (Foucault 124) of the auth
or, requiring that a specific person take responsibility for the text he has wri
tten. Slipping into Barthes' definitions of the words, he makes the distinction
that "an anonymous poster attached to a wall may have a writer, but he cannot be
an author" (124). Foucault continues by noting that a scientific works which ar
e similar to Barthes' definition of a writer's texts, in that both propose ideas
independent of the language in which they are written are "accepted on their ow
n merits and positioned within an anonymous and coherent conceptual system of es
tablished truths and methods of verification" (126). By contrast, a literary wor
k or, in Barthes' terms, an author's text must state "its author and the date, p
lace, and circumstances of its writing" (126) to have meaning and value.
So, though Barthes and Foucault expect an author to be lost in his text, they al
so expect him to step outside of his writing and take responsibility for it, bot
h by attaching a name and by suffering society's criticisms.

==============
In 'What is an Author?' and 'The Death of the Author' Michel Foucault and Roland
Barthes make seminal contributions to literary theory.
In both The Death of the Author and What is an Author?
written by Roland Barthes
and Michel Foucault respectively - the basic premise is the same: a literary te
xt is defined on its own terms by its own language; literature cannot be read an
d decoded in relation to its author.
Where the problem begins is that Roland Barthes, in The Death of the Author stat
es that the birth of the reader must come at the cost of the death of the author ,
yet What is an Author? has Michel Foucault deconstructing the myth of the author
and authorship, and investigating the relationship between the author and the w
ork.
In the respective essays, Foucault and Barthes draw the same conclusion
that app
lied authorship distorts and limits a text but Barthes denies the existence of t
he author, whilst Foucault undermines the author s influence and authority.
Roland Barthes -- The Death of the Author
Barthes outlines this clearly when he states: In the multiplicity of writing, eve
rything is to be disentangled, nothing deciphered the space of writing is to be ra
nged over, not pierced .
Simply, The Death of the Author argues that a reader gains nothing from a litera
ry work if they know the feelings of the writer of the piece because a text beco
mes a text when it is put into writing; it is the text, purely because it comes
into existence, not because it is created by an author and it is the language wh
ich gives it resonance.
This is the meaning behind Barthes
t the author .

assertion that:

It is language which speaks, no

He accepts that literature must have an author and creator, just as it must have
a reader: One cannot turn a name into a pure and simple reference. It has other

than indicative functions When one says, Aristotle , one employs a word that is the e
quivalent of one or a series of definite descriptions .
He respects that, as he writes, the name Aristotle brings with it the associatio
n that Aristotle wrote The Analytics, though also makes it clear that a descript
ion, by its nature, does not bring forth meaning. To say, for example, that F. S
cott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, does not help us understand the meaning
of the language of the text, The Great Gatsby.
Reconciling the Author With the Text
To illustrate this point, Foucault develops what he describes as the author funct
ion . He argues that the author exists as the creator of a work but his individual
ity becomes irrelevant upon the coming together of the text, because it is langu
age which defines a text; an author is simply a name, not a code of meanings.
Foucault maintains that the author himself is a character; a work of fiction, wh
o, in the process of writing, adopts certain personas and emotions: Everyone know
s that, in a novel narrated in the first person, neither the first person pronou
n, nor the present indicative refer exactly either to the writer or the moment i
n which he writes .
This conclusion serves as an expansion upon Barthes original argument that: The a
uthor is never more than the instance writing, just as I is nothing other than t
he instance saying I . What is an Author? argues that a writer who acts with the
same authenticity as a fictional character, carries the same authority that a re
ader would attribute to the characters the author creates.
Concluding the Position of Foucault and Barthes
Foucault and Barthes argue in favour of the downfall of the authority of a write
r. Barthes outlines this when he writes: To give a text an Author is to impose a
limit on that text . Whilst Foucault agrees with this statement, he tries more ca
refully to explain the irrelevance of an author, being wary of Barthes attempt t
o create a universal truth about the non-existence of the author, which Foucault
recognises as a historical institution and one which cannot be swayed as easily
as The Death of the Author suggests.
The essays of Barthes and Foucault remain prominent examples of post-structurali
st theory.

================
GOMBRICH
Mas, assim que dominasse todas essas regras, dava-se por encerrada a
sua aprendizagem. Ningum queria coisas diferentes, ningum lhe pedia que
fosse "original". Pelo
contrrio, era provavelmente considerado o melhor artista aquele que pude
sse fazer suas esttuas o
mais parecidas com os monumentos admirados do passado. Por isso acont
eceu que. no transcurso de
trs mil anos ou mais, a arte egpcia mudou muito pouco. Tudo o que era conside
rado bom e belo na
era das pirmides era tido como igualmente excelente mil anos depois. certo que
surgiram novas
modas e novos temas foram pedidos aos artistas, mas o modo de representarem o ho
mem e a natureza
permaneceu essencialmente o mesmo.

A fama de Giotto correu clere. O povo de Florena orgulhava-se dele.

Interessava-se por sua vida e contava anedotas sobre sua argcia, seus
ditos de
esprito e sua destreza. Tambm isso era uma novidade. Nada de parecido
acontecera antes. claro, tinha havido mestres que gozavam da estima g
eral e
eram recomendados de mosteiro para mosteiro, ou de bispo para bispo. M
as, de
um modo geral, as pessoas no achavam necessrio preservar os nomes desse
s
mestres para a posteridade. Consideravam-nos como hoje consideramos um
bom
marceneiro ou alfaiate. Os prprios artistas tampouco estavam muito interessados e
m
adquirir fama ou notoriedade. Com bastante freqncia, nem sequer assinavam
suas obras. Ignoramos os nomes dos mestres que fizeram as esculturas
de
Chartres. Estrasburgo ou Naumburgo.
Sem dvida, eram apreciados no seu tempo, mas outorgaram a honra cated
ral para
que haviam trabalhado. Tambm a este respeito o pintor florentino Giotto
inicia um
capitulo inteiramente novo na histria da arte. Dos seus dias em diante, a histria
da arte,
primeiro na Itlia e depois em outros paises, tambm, passou a ser a histria dos gran
des
artistas.
==========
BOURDIEU
he sociologist is someone who, just as Voltaire expelled kings from
history, wants to expel artists from the history of art. [. . .]
The first received idea is that sociology can give an account of cul
tural
consumption but not of cultural production.

This approach, which, in its most caricatural

forms, subordinates the writer or artist to the constraints of a mili
eu or the
direct demands of a clientele, succumbs to a nave teleology or functio
nalism,
directly deducing the work from the function that is alleged to be socially assi
gned
to it.
The sociology of art and literature in its ordinary form in fact forgets what is
essential, namely the universe of artistic production, a social universe having
its own
traditions, its own laws of functioning and recruitment, and therefore
its own

history. The autonomy of art and the artist, which the hagiographic tradition ac
cepts
as self-evident in the name of the ideology of the work of art as creation and the
artist as uncreated creator, is nothing other than the (relative) autonomy of wh
at I
call a field , an autonomy that is established step by step, and under certain c
ondi-tions, in the course of history.
In my view, the sociology of cultural products must take as its object the
whole set of relationships (objective ones and also those e ffected in
the form of
interactions) between the artist and other artists , and beyond them, the whole
set of
agents engaged in the production of the work, or, at least, of the social value
of the
work (critics, gallery directors, patrons, etc.)
The sociology of works of art, as I conceive it, rejects these different ways of
ignoring production itself. It takes as its object the field of cultural prod
uction and
inseparably from this, the relationship between the field of production and the
field
of consumers
What is called creation is the encounter between a socially constituted habitus
and a particular position that is already instituted or possible in the divisi
on of the
labour of cultural production.
in short, the producer s habitus is never entirely the product of his post
Conversely, one can never move directly from the social characteristics of
the producer his social origin
to the characteristics of his product
Thus, the originating subject of a work of art is neither an individual artist
t
he
98 pierre bourdieu
apparent cause
nor a social group (such as the banking and commercia
l bour-geoisie that rose to power in Quattrocento Florence, according
to Antal, or the
noblesse de robe, in Goldmann s theory). Rather, it is the field of artistic produ
ction as a
whole (which stands in a relation of relative autonomy, greater or lesser depen
ding
on the period and the society, with respect to the groups from which the consume
rs
of its products are recruited, i.e. the various fractions of the ruling class)
It is true that art imitates art , or, more precisely, that art is born of art, and
usually the art with which it contrasts. And the autonomy of the artist finds i
ts basis
not in the miracle of his creative genius but in the social product of the socia
l history
of a relatively autonomous field
methods, techniques, styles, etc.
the social nature and value of the object are changed without
any change in its physical or (thinking of perfume) its chemical nature. Paintin
g,

since Duchamp, has provided countless examples, of which you are all aware, of
magical acts which, like those of the couturier, so clearly owe their value to t
he
social value of the person who produces them that the question to ask is not wha
t
the artist creates, but who creates the artist,
value of the work is not the rarity (the uniqueness) of the product but the rari
ty of
the producer, manifested by the signature ,
The analysis would need to be spelled out in more detail. Here I shall simply
point out that one of the main tasks of art history would be to describe the gen
esis of
a field of artistic production capable of producing the artist as such (as oppo
sed to
the craftsman). This would not mean raising yet again, as has been done, obsessi
vely,
in the social history of art, the question of when and how the artist emerged fr
om
the status of craftsman. It means describing the economic and social conditions
of
the constitution of an artistic field capable of underpinning belief i
n the quasi-godlike powers attributed to the modern artist.
figure of the artist as master, that is, as the producer
of the fetish of the work of art. In a word, the aim would be to describe the hi
storical
constitution of the field of artistic production, which as such, produces belie
f in the
value of art and in the value-creating power of the artist.
=========
---> Sociologia do artista
The nature of the artist has been a central preoccupation of art history writing f
rom
the inauguration of the western art-historical tradition in Vasari s The Lives of
the
Artists .
This image of the
artist was reformulated in the Romantic period, laying emphasis on creativity at
the
expense of academic rules and theory
he idea of the artist as creator, the ultimate source and origin
of the meaning of all his or her works of art, is a major det ermi nant both of
academic
art-historical practice, in which the monograph on an in dividual artist remains
the
dominant scholarly genre, and of representations of the artist within public and
popu-lar culture
It has long been recognised that the development of this conception of the artis
t is
a historical and culturally specific phenomenon. Early art-historical studies of
the
artist portray this development largely as a teleological unfo lding of an authe

ntic
conception of the artist implicit in certain strands of classical Greek and earl
y Christian thought (Panofsky 1924, Blunt 1940). Others, even where they recognise the
discovery of our modern conception of the artist as a relatively recent phenomenon
,
tend to assimilate visual artists from other cultures and times to our own model
Formalist art
historians, such as Riegl and Wlfflin, advocated an art history without names in
which the historical development of styles was seen as a largely immanent proces
s in
which individual artists played no great role (Hauser 1958, 119 276). More recentl
y,
art historians influenced by structuralist lingustics have developed similar arg
uments.
They suggest that the meaning of works of art depends more on shared languages o
f
visual representation than any original artistic intention.
Sociological work on the artist has similarly sought to decentre and desacralise
the figure of the artist by revealing the mundane material underpinnings of the
ideol-ogy of the creative artist (Zolberg 1990, 107 35). The Marxist social histor
ian of art
Arnold Hauser (Chapter 8) argues that the development of the concept of creative
genius in Renaissance Italy is simply a reflection of the enhanced market value
of
artists in a context where an expanding range of patrons
church, state, aristocr
atic
elite, bourgeoisie competed for their services
STATUS AND ROLE IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF ARTISTS
a long-standing tradition of sociological work has been less hostile to the ide
a of the artist
as such.
Most work, however, takes for granted the idea of the artist in
much the same way as conventional art history, but explores the varying ways in
which this role is defined and enacted both over time and within different conte
xts
in contemporary societies, laying particular emphasis on the varying st
atus of
artists.
Role and status are two of the most fundamental concepts of sociological
analysis. The concept of status describes the position of an actor within social
struc-ture, in particular in so far as this position is ranked as superior or i
nferior to other
positions. The concept of role describes patterned expectations about and perfor
m-ances of action by groups of actors interacting with each other. The concepts
are thus
complementary
The concept of role draws particularly close attention to the fact that the arti
sts
never act in isolation but always in the context of interaction in social relati
onships.
Norbert Elias uses his figurational sociology to analyse the transition from crafts
-man s art to artist s art in western culture as part of a long-term civilising process
(Chapter 10). In traditional societies, art is produced by low-status craftsmen

for
high-status patrons, whether members of an elite or whole communities. In accord
-ance with the power differential between patron and craftsman, these patrons de
ter-mine the form of the artwork in terms of the specific social function of the
work in
question and communal traditions of design, at the expense of any expression of
the
craftman s personal fantasy.
This entails not simply more
freedom for the artist, emancipated from close external controls by patrons, but
also
greater internalised self-control on the part of the artist.
As Elias suggests,
the attraction of this figurational approach to the artist s role is twofold. Firs
t, it
integrates the history of art within a broader history of societal development
permit comparison of similar processes in other his-torical contexts,
RETHINKING CREATIVITY: THE QUESTION OF ARTISTIC AGENCY
The changing status of the artist between the medieval period and the modern era
has
been centrally tied up with processes of professionalisation which redefine both t
he
role of the artist and the artist s claims to prestige through changes in patterns
of
recruitment, training and socialisation (Moulin 1983, Menger and Moulin 1983).
Sociologists have shown how visual artists from the Renaissance onwards have pur
-sued similar strategies of professionalisation to those pursued by other occupa
tions:
the formalisation of knowledge on a theoretical basis, setting their
pr
ofessional
knowledge apart from everyday knowledge as the basis for a claim to special pres
tige,
creating organisations which support privileged access to opportunities of emplo
y-ment and p rivileged working conditions
formation of the Florentine Academy under the leadership
of Vasari
These studies of professionalisation have a dual interest in rethinking the ques
tion
of artistic creativity. First, they show that the idea of the artist as creator
is not just an
ideology but has been built into the ways in which the role and pictorial practi
ce of
artists is socially and culturally constructed in post-medieval western culture
and society
The historical, theoretical and tech-nical training received by artists in acade
mies served to rationalise and reconstruct
artistic agency
the capacity of artists to intervene in the process of the produ
ction of
pictures in a way which significantly affected the final artistic outcome
and th
us
enhanced the creative powers at the disposal of the state.
Second, these studies suggest that the development of this creative role is not

a
straightforward story of artistic success and increased autonomy.
he organisation of
cultural production becomes increasingly class-structured
marginalise other
pictorial artists such as reproductive engravers and print-makers
====
HAUSER
THE INCREASED DEMANDS FOR works of art in the Renaissance leads to
the ascent of the artist from the level of the petty bourgeois artisan to that o
f
the free intellectual worker
The artists of the early Quattrocento are
still entirely small folk; they are regarded as higher-grade craftsmen and their
social
origins and education do not make them any different from the petty
bourgeois
elements of the guilds.
They are named after the occupation of their father, their birthplace or their m
aster,
and they are treated as familiarly as domestics
Their education is based on the same principles as that of the ordinary craftsme
n;
they are trained not in schools, but in workshops, and the instruction is practi
cal,
not theoretical.
But the leading
artists shops of the early Renaissance introduce, despite their still fundamental
ly
artisan-like organization, more individual teaching methods.
the leaders are just as
important and famous as teachers as they are as artists. Apprentices no longer e
nter
the first workshop that they come across, but go to a particular master,
The artist s studio of the early Renaissance is still dominated by the communal
spirit of the masons lodge and the guild workshop; the work of art is not yet the
expression of an independent personality, emphasizing his individuality and excl
ud-ing himself from all extraneous in fluences. The claim independently to shape
the
whole work from the first stroke to the last and the inability to co-operate wit
h
pupils and assistants are first noticeable in Michelangelo, who, in this respec
t too, is
the first modern artist. Until the end of the fifteenth century the
artistic labour
114 arnold hauser
process still takes place entirely in collective forms. I

The spirit of craftsmanship which dominates the Quattrocento is express

ed,
above all, in the fact that the artists studios often take on minor orders of a p
urely
technical nature.
A
fundamental change in the generally accepted criteria of artistic work does not
begin
to make itself felt until the period of Michelangelo
The artists of the early Renaissance are also economically on an equal footing
with the petty bourgeois tradesman. Their situation is in general not brilliant,
but
neither is it exactly precarious. No artist is as yet in a position to live like
a lord, but,
on the other hand, there exists nothing that one could call an artistic proletar
iat
Those artists were still best o ff who were in the service of a
court or a patron
even the well-known masters were
not much better paid than the average artist and the higher-grade craftsman. Per
son-alities like Donatello probably received somewhat higher fees, but
f
ancy prices
were still non-existent.
the master himself was paid according
to the time spent on the work. Wage-work remained the general rule in painting
until the end of the fifteenth century; only later was this method of compensat
ion
limited to purely artisan jobs, such as restorations and copying
As the artistic profession breaks away from pure craftsmanship, all th
e con-ditions set down in work contracts are gradually altered
In the Quattrocento it was still
the general custom to require the artist to provide a guarantor to stand surety
for
the observance of the contract; with Michelangelo this guarantee becomes a mere
formality
In a contract of the year 1524, Sebastiano
del Piombo is left free to choose any subject he likes for a painting, on the so
le
condition that it shall not be the picture of a saint; and in 1531, the same col
lector
orders a work from Michelangelo and it is left entirely to the artis
t to decide
whether it shall be a painting or a piece of sculpture.
From the very beginning, artists were better placed in Renaissance Italy than in
other countries, not so much as a result of the more highly develope
d forms of
urban life
the bourgeois milieu in itself o ffered them no better opportunities
than
the ordinary craftsmen
but because the Italian princes and despots were better
able to use and appreciate their gifts than foreign ruler
The social ascent of the artists is expressed first of all in the fees they rec

eive. In
the last quarter of the fifteenth century relatively high prices begin
to be paid
the renaissance artist 117
in Florence for fresco paintings
Towards the end of the century several artists are already doing well finan-cial
l
The celebrated masters of
the Cinquecento, especially Raphael and Titian, enjoy a considerable income and
lead a lordly life.
The emancipation of the painters and sculptors from the fetters of the guilds
and their ascent from the level of the artisan to that of the poet and scholar h
as been
attributed to their alliance with the humanists; the humanists support for them,
on
the other hand, has been explained by the fact that the literary and artistic mo
nu-ments of antiquity formed an indivisible unity in the eyes of these enthusias
ts, and
that they were convinced that the poets and artists of classical antiquity were
held in
equal regard.
the artist, who had never been anything more than a mere mechanic in
the eyes of antiquity, shared the honours of divine favour with the poe
For the artists the humanists were the guarantors of
their intellectual status, and the humanists themselves recognized the value of
art as
a means of propaganda for the ideas on which their own intellectual supremacy wa
s
based. It was this mutual relationship which first gave rise to that conception
of the
unity of the arts which we take for granted, but which was unknown before the
Renaissance.
Medieval literature on art was limited to recipe books
excellence in craftsmanship; he exhorted the artists
to be industrious, obedient and persevering, and saw in the
imitation
f the
paragons the most certain way to mastery. All this was on the old m
edieval-traditionalist lines. The replacing of the imitation of the mas
ters by the study of
nature is first accomplished theoretically by Leonardo da Vinci, but he was mere
ly
expressing the victory of naturalism and rationalism over tradition which had be
en
won long since in practice.
Already in the early Quattrocento apprentices
are made familiar with the rudiments of geometry, perspective and anat
omy in
addition to the practical instruction, and introduced to drawing from life and f
rom
puppets.
The scientific conception of art, which forms the basis of instruction

in the
academies, begins with Leon Battista Alberti. He is the first to express the ide
a that
mathematics is the common ground of art and the sciences, as both the theory of
proportions and of perspective are mathematical disciplines. He is also the fir
st to
give clear expression to that union of the experimental technician and the obser
ving
artist which had already been achieved in practice by Masaccio and Uccello. Both
try
to comprehend the world empirically
The fundamentally new element in the Renaissance conception of art is
the
discovery of the concept of genius, and the idea that the work of art is the cre
ation of
an autocratic personality, that this personality transcends tradition, theory an
d rules,
even the work itself, is richer and deeper than the work and impossible to expre
ss
adequately within any objective form. This idea remained foreign to th
e Middle
Ages, which recognized no independent value in intellectual originality
and
spontaneity, recommended the imitation of the masters and considered plagiarism
permissible, and which was, at the most, superficially touched but in
no sense
dominated by the idea of intellectual competition. The idea of genius as a gift
of
God, as an inborn and uniquely individual creative force, the doctrine of the pe
r-sonal and exceptional law which the genius is not only permitted to but must f
ollow,
the justi fication of the individuality and wilfulness of the artist of genius
t
his whole
trend of thought first arises in Renaissance society, which, owing to
its dynamic
nature and permeation with the idea of competition, o ffers the indivi
dual better
opportunities than the authoritarian culture of the Middle Ages,
The indi-vidualistic conception of the Renaissance, therefore, requires c
orrection in two
directions. Burckhardt s thesis is not, however, to be dismissed out of hand, for
if
strong personalities already existed in the Middle Ages, yet to think and act in
di-vidually is one thing and to be conscious of one s individuality, to
a ffirm and
deliberately to intensify it, is anothe
The self-recollection of individuality does not begin until
the Renaissance, but the Renaissance does not itself begin with the self-recolle
cting
individuality
The development of the concept of genius begins with the idea of intellectual
property. In the Middle Ages both this conception and the desire for originality
are
lacking; both are directly interrelated. As long as art is nothing but the repre
senta-tion of the Divine and the artist only the medium through which
the eternal,

supernatural order of things is made visible, there can be no question of autono

my in
art nor of the artist actually owning his work
As soon as religion
ceases to control and unite within itself all the spheres of spiritual life, the
idea of the
autonomy of the various forms of intellectual expression appears, and an art whi
ch
bears its meaning and purpose within itself becomes conceivable
Even when it is placed in the service of extra-artistic purposes, art
now remains enjoyable and significant in itself.
The Trecento is still completely under the spell of one master
Giotto
and of his tradition; but in the Quattrocento individualistic e fforts begin to
make
their mark in all directions. Originality becomes a weapon in the com
petitive
struggle.
But the ideal of the
original genius itself does not appear until the eighteenth century, when, in the
transition from private patronage to the free, unprotected market, artists have
to
wage a sterner fight for their material existence than ever before
======================
Elias
IN DECIDING TO QUIT his service in Salzburg and entrust his future to the
favour of Viennese good society without a permanent post, Mozart was taking a
very unusual step for a musician of his rank at that time. But it was of the utm
ost
importance for his musical production
new canon which gradually formed as music
production by relatively free artists competing for a mainly anonymous
public
became the rule.
. The special quality of Mozart s music undoubtedly stems from the unique-ness of
his gift. But the way this gift expressed itself in his works is very closely
bound up with the fact that he, a court musician, took the step to freelance statu
s
in a sense too early, at a time when social development allowed such a step but
was
not quite ready for it institutionally.
However, the di fficulty and recklessness of this step emerge clearly only if it
is
seen in the wider context of the development leading from craftsmen s a
rt to
artists art, from art production for particular patrons, usually social superiors
, to
production for the anonymous market, for a public which is by and large the arti
st s
equal. Mozart s social existence, the peculiarity of his social fate, shows very c
learly
that the switch from craftsmen s art to free artistic creation was not an abrupt

event.
It is not to suggest that the art of
free artists for a market of unknown customers is better or worse than that of
craftsmen produced for patrons.
In the course of the changing relationship between those who produce
art and those who need and buy it, the structure of art changes, not its value
the relationship between artists and consumers, no matter how many
intermediate links there may be between them, involves a speci fic power balance
.
With the transition from craftsmen s art to artists art this balance changes.
On the other hand, such a change in
the relation of art producers to art consumers is by no means strictly tied to t
he
particular sequence of events in Europe
. In one case,
where a craftsman-artist works for a particular client known to him, the product
is
usually created for a speci fic purpose prescribed by society. It might be a pub
lic
festivity or a private ritual
the form of the artwork is shaped less by its function for the
individual producer and more by its function for the client and user, in keeping
with
the structure of the power-ratio
When, in conjunction with a push towards broader democratisation and t
he
corresponding widening of the art market, the balance of power between art pro-d
ucers and art consumers gradually tilts in favour of the former, we finally reac
h a
situation of the kind which can be observed in some branches of art in the twent
ieth
century
especially in painting but also in elite music and even in popular music
Here the work of
art depends in large measure on individuals self-questioning as to what pleases t
hem
In this phase of the development of art, therefore, individual artists (Picasso,
Schoenberg) or even small groups of artists (expressionists, atonalists) have gr
eater
importance as leaders of artistic taste. Again and again a few artists rush far
ahead of
the canon of art understanding in their field and
whatever the diffi
culties of
reception may be they do not fail as a result. T
===============
RENAISSANCE ART
t the same time,
it is precisely during the Renaissance that the modern concept
of Art (with a capital A ) first began to emerge, together with

related notions about the status of the artist as creative genius,

the importance of originality (rather than craftsmanship) in
assessing the merit of art objects, and the significance of using
aesthetic criteria to judge works of art
subjects that we will
consider briefly below and, at greater length, in several of the
following chapters
Nowadays, when we are used to artists being
judged for how innovative, ground-breaking, or even outrageous
their ideas and concepts may be, rather than for how skilful or
technically proficient they are, it is easy to forget just how much
craft and expertise
as well as hard, physical labour was involved
in producing even a small painting on a wooden panel, let
alone an entire cycle of frescos on a massive church wall or an
over-life-sized statue in solid marble or molten bronze, all in an
era before electricity, engines, mass-produced paint and paper,
temperature-controlled furnaces, and photography were available.
Although many museums and guidebooks seem to imply that
Renaissance art consists only of monumental masterpieces
by well-known artists, this chapter will remind us that the
vast majority of works produced in this period were actually
smaller-scale objects made by little-known or even anonymous
artists and craftsmen for specific domestic or devotional purposes.
Today, some of the objects originally found in the homes of
wealthy Renaissance patrons are proudly exhibited on the walls
of our galleries as works of Art , while others are displayed in
special rooms or even separate museums devoted to the decorative
arts and shown as examples of more lowly craft production. But
15th- and 16th-century beholders would probably not have made
such clear-cut distinctions
Most art
historians have concentrated on using stylistic criteria to categorize
these works primarily in terms of artists names and dates of
production in order to establish a reliable corpus of authentic
objects
Such issues were not, however, those that
would have most concerned the original beholders of these works.
Indeed, until the end of the 15th century, most home inventories did not bother
to specify the authorship of such objects, which suggests
that questions of attribution were not of primary importance to
their first owners.
the concept of art-making as primarily an
aesthetic rather than a functional activity ( art for art s sake ); the
image of the artist as a creative and visionary genius; the idea that
art s goal is to imitate the natural world; and the notion of
inevitable artistic progress through the ages.
Nowadays, we often simply assume that organizing art
history by the names of individual artists is a perfectly natural and

normal thing to do, whether in the monographic books we buy, the

one-man exhibitions we attend, or the television documentaries we
watch. But, actually, until the Renaissance this was not at all the
norm. Indeed, as we have seen, in this period many of the objects
and images produced would have been viewed first and foremost
in terms of their patron, function, medium, or iconography,
rather being associated with the name of the person who had
made them.
Our present-day view of artists, much like our current
understanding of Art , has very much been shaped by the 19th
century, for it was in this period that emphasis decisively shifted
from an artist s skill or ability to his or her individual creativity
So, true artists were now most prized for their imagination,
inventiveness, spontaneity, and creative self-expression even if
or, better yet, especially if these traits resulted in artists leading
unconventional lives touched by a kind of creative madness
However, some aspects of this notion of the artist and, implicitly, of
artistic genius can be dated back to the Renaissance and the rise of
121
Michelangelo: birth of the artist and art history
the first art-world

superstars .

Michelangelo himself
saw his own creative powers as being
only was he pleased to be nicknamed
during his own lifetime, but many of
equated the act of artistic creation

divine and god-like. Not

The Divine One (Il Divino )
the sonnets he wrote also
with God s creation of Man

Whereas in past centuries,

artists names had generally not been recorded for posterity except
accidentally in contracts and similar workaday documents and had
36. Michelangelo Buonarroti, Creation of Adam, fresco, c. 1508 12
123
Michelangelo: birth of the artist and art history
almost never appeared on individual works of art, by the 15th
century some artists had begun trying to distinguish themselves
from their artisan and craftmen brethren by signing some of their
works, as seen, for instance, in Jan van Eyck s boldly scrawled name
on the back wall of the Arnolfini Portrait (see Figure 19). This trend
becomes even more apparent in the 16th century, when signatures
began to appear much more frequently on paintings, sculptures,
prints, and sometimes even drawings.
It was also precisely to eliminate any ambiguity about authorship
that Michelangelo decided belatedly to sign his name on one of his
most important early sculptures, the famous marble Piet in the
Vatican, completed in 1499.
The ever more lofty status of the semi-divine artist, whom Vasari
was eager to distinguish from what he saw as lowly artisans and
mere craftsmen, is also suggested in the Life of Michelangelo by
the artist s association from an early age with the great and the good
of his time
the Renaissance artist differs from his

Romantic successor: while the latter s biography is usually

characterized by a constant stream of rejection by contemporary
society, in the case of the Renaissance super-artist, it was precisely
by demonstrating that he could interact with society s ultimate
insiders, the members of the elite, that his high status as an
artist was confirmed
====
Argan
p.129
(...) o artista medieval era responsvel epanas pela execuo, porque os contedos e at o
s temas de imagem eram-lhe fornecidos; agora i artusta deve encontr-los e defin-lo
s, isto , no opera mais segundo diretrizes ideolgicas impostas por uma autoridade s
uperior ou por uma tradio consagrada, mas determina de modo autnomo a orientao ideolgi
ca e cultural do prprio trabalho. A arte no mais uma atividade manual ou mechanica
, seja at mesmo de alto nvel, mas intelectual ou liberalis.
p.137
Opor-se tradio estilstica e tcnica significa inventar algo de novo na ordem das form
as e dos processos operativos: tambm a inveno ato individual. A personalidade do ar
tista ganha, assim, um destaque jamais tido antes.
p.137
A importncia dada personalidade e originalidade do artista no elimina as relaes entr
e eles. Cada um est perfeitamente inteirado do que na arte se faz na sua cidade e
fora dela (...)
=====
Baxandall
pp.25-26
O caso da pintura foi semelhante. A medida que o consumo ostensivo do ouro e do
ultramarino atingia menor importncia nos contratos, era substitudo pelo consumo ig
ualmente ostensivo de outra coisa - a habilidade tcnica do pintor.
p.30
num contrato "e que nenhum pintor a no ser o prprio Piero ponha a mo no pincel"
p.33

no somente h discriminaes em funo da superioridade de um artista em relao a outro, ma

ambm em funo da diferena de temperamento de um para outro.