For as long as there have been artists, there have been apprentices. Sometimes those apprentices went on to become renowned masters, sometimes they languished in obscurity.
Except that's not even remotely the issue being discussed here.
This is about artists going to people who are already experts in their field and having them construct the art, but taking (or being given) all of the credit for it.
It's exactly what's being discussed here. Historically, this kind of operation is the norm rather than the exception. If you walk around the Louvre or the Met, a large proportion of what you see will have been painted largely or wholly by an apprentice or assistant. Many Renaissance and Baroque masters ran something akin to a factory, with each painting being the product of several artists specialising in a particular task. The idea of art as the personal product of a singular genius is largely a work of romantic mythology, continued into the present day as marketing puffery for the art industry.
Are you morally outraged that Marc Jacobs does not personally cut and sew every garment bearing his name? Are you shocked to learn that many pop stars are entirely unable to write, produce or play music?
No, it's not. There is no training being given. These are not apprentices learning how to create art, they are skilled professionals carrying out work that the artist themselves is often incapable of. An apprentice learns their skills from their master and could be seen as a creation of the master, art technicians are simply there to do the work.
> Are you morally outraged that Marc Jacobs does not personally cut and sew every garment bearing his name? Are you shocked to learn that many pop stars are entirely unable to write, produce or play music?
No, and I never said I was outraged at the art technicians not getting credit, since they themselves are certainly don't seem to be. However there the public perception is that the artist who gets the credit is the one who did the majority of the work when this if often not the case.
This seems to be the reverse, the apprentice with financial resources asks the artist to build the work and then take the credit. They most likely give some headaches to the technicians when they don't know what they want or are unhappy with the results of the specifications
This happens all through society. I take credit for all sorts of things I couldn't have done without my shirt. My shirt was made by shirtmaking experts who were paid, peanuts probably, and that's good enough. So where do you draw the line? The thing about the shirt maker is that they are interchangeable, whereas I, with the things I take credit for while wearing the shirt, am not. I have authorship. The shirtmaker doesn't.
It's not about apprentices, it's about people, technicians, actually making the 'objects' for and in place of the artist whose name is linked to the 'objects'. Because often those artist don't have the technical know-how or tools to make something. So they pay someone to make it. Hence the problematic question.
I was a teen when my father did most of the technical work (of course the actual building was done by construction firms and carpenters) for this (1978) exhibition in Florence by Dani Karavan:
The artist actually sculpted everything in clay (in scale models) or made rather accurate sketches on paper, then they were adapted/modified slightly (and interactively with the artist) to make them actually "buildable" (either in wood or in pre-cast concrete) and transportable to the exhibition site.
It never came to our minds that the "art" in the scupltures was not entirely by the artist, my father considered himself an artisan, and simply executed (well and in practice) what the artist view was.
Cause Rembrandt actually teached that apprentice how to do his work. Apprentice's skill is the result of master's work. That makes a huge difference to me.
> Cause Rembrandt actually teached that apprentice how to do his work.
And a modern artist told his technician how to do his work.
In this sense, I think the boundary is much more fluent. In my personal opinion, the artist is the person who has the "most established name" to sell the piece of art that he branded under his name to rich people.
What you are joking about is in my opinion much more serious than it looks like at first appearance. Why do you think so many rich people love to spend lots of money to have e.g. buildings named after them (for example at reputable universities)?
So your suggestion, of course refined gallantly in a way that makes it presentable in polite society, does not sound that absurd to me.
Considering the etymology and historic origin of "artist" as a skilled artisan. It's not even that novel an idea. Lots of things we consider art pieces are named after the buyer and not what we consider now the artist.
