Art and the Artist

When does the artist overlap its art?

Should we be able to alienate the art from the artist?

When I look at a piece of art I think of the artist and not so much the content within the painting. Is this wrong? Not being able to appreciate the art for itself but for the person who made it. I would like to be able to acknowledge the art for its beauty, but I look at it and its I feel like its overshadowed by its artist.  

Do we like the art because of its beauty or because of the person who made it?

I come at this from a viewer’s point of view, whenever I go to a museum or exhibition, I look at the paintings and have the urge to touch them; only because of the person who made them. I wonder what it would be like if I had the ability to alienate the art form the artist, would I look at it differently? Would it look the same? Would it feel different? Less valuable?

The separation of these two, the art and the artist, in my opinion is sometimes essential in order to fully take in the paintings wealth. We cannot fully acknowledge a paintings quality when they are clearly overshadowed by the person who created them, sometimes I feel like I need to look at a painting for what it is- a painting and ignore who made it. I want to understand at what point in the past did the art get overlapped by the artist, when did we start seeing a painting because of the person who made it and not because of its content in paint.

Back in the Egyptian times, the term artist didn’t exist, in fact its rather recent, but back then a person who created art was simply a craftsman, a person who was skilled enough to get the job done. They didn’t take the credit for creating it or even put a signature. This right here is a prime example of what I’m trying to explain, when we look at pieces of Egyptian history, a statue, or a hieroglyph on a wall we don’t get influenced by the person who made them, first because we don’t know and second because it didn’t matter, yet we are still able to appreciate the art for what it truly is-art. Why can’t that be the case today, why must we have to associate a name to a painting? What happened to make us need to associate a name to the painting?

Fast forward to the middle ages, and the artist was still seen as simple craftsmen and labourers, someone who was skilled and good at working with their hands. This, as we all know, was something terribly despised by these artists, they wanted the recognition they deserved and fiercely fought for. They wanted to be able to put their name on their creations and be called the thinkers of such beauty. It’s during the Renaissance that the term artist truly becomes a norm, but it’s only been in the recent centuries where artists like Picasso or Warhol achieve such high statuses. These high statuses are what has changed the relationship between the art and its artist. Nowadays the value of a painting is basically the result of who painted it.

For example Warhol could have painted on a napkin and it would have been incredibly valuable just because Warhol touch it, art is now an expression of the artist and not the materials involved with the painting- they often have little to do with the worth of the art. The art is a reflexion of its artist, his or her state of mind, thoughts, and spirit. How could we possibly separate the creator form the creation? The thing that makes a painting a painting is its emotional value and the artist views. Without the emotional value the painting would just be paint on a canvas, the artist not only adds value but also adds an emotional touch to the painting which essentially makes it come alive.

After learning this I ask myself but then how come I always want to alienate something that naturally belongs together, and I thinks it’s because I want to see the painting as a painting and not think of the artist as I’m looking at it. And again, I ask myself, if one day in the future my paintings become of high value, would I not like to be known as the creator of a such thing? And the answer is yes obviously, I would want everyone to know I made it and be able to brag about it.

But you never know a hundred years from now the way our future generations look at art may be completely different to now.