Changing Role of the Artist from Different Times

The artist as a romantic genius was a development of the renaissance artist as a hero. That the superlative artist gained superlative social positions; they were proclaimed as men of genius, their powers of creation exalted as never before. Concept of the artist as a genius was appropriate to an age obsessed with the potential of man and the style of talentspersonality. In the late 18th Century a German philosopher Immanuel Kant put forward the idea that artists are geniuses who are born rather then taught. Michelangelo Buonarroti; a renaissance Italian Male (born 1475-1664) was perceived as a born genius.

His role as an artist was established as an high renaissance male who was multidiscipline and a mulit-skilled painter, sculpture, poet and scientist of anatomy; he was highly regarded as a ‘god like’ figure. His tumultuouscareer, with its perpetual struggles and its passionate commitment to art, was to become the master pattern for the romantic genius. Michelangelo’s artistic skills were perceived to originate from birth nevertheless he practised as a trained apprentice at the age of 13 in the workshop of the established art master Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence.

He is infatuated byfood, sex, death and fame; this fatuation led to consumer product, nudity and celebrity icons such as Jackie Kennedy, Elvis Privily and Marilyn. Warhol had a specific, obvious style; He used repetition and simplification. Popularculturehas a huge influence on his art. His art caused controversy in society. His art challenged the modernist idea of originality of the artist. Critics originally ridiculed Pop Art; “A range of distasteful, stupid, vulgar, assertive and ugly manifestations of the worst kind of our society. (Solomon) Another critic Norbert Lynton quoted “pop art seems on the whole leave aside the basic questions and values of art. ” The public responded t it favourably. American society, the post WWII and thecold warhugely influenced his art. Warhol would conditionally say Conflicting statements that shocked and corrupted society; “I want everyone to think alike. I think everybody should be a machine,” &“Once you see pop art, you can’t see America in the same way. ” Andy Warhol picked his subjects off supermarket shelves and from the front pages of the tabloids. He would then mass-produce the image, repeating them by silkscreen duplication.

The well-known images pushed art out of the museum and into mainstream. Warhol’s “100 can of Campbell’s Soup” created in 1962; was cans assembled in a line. The serial images of consumer items in a hard-edged graphic style, Warhol wanted a machinelike art without social comment or emotion. From 1963-68 Warhol made more than sixty films which reached new depths of banality. One silent film, “Sleep” runs six hours, capturing every non-nuance of a man sleeping; “I like boring things” Warhol stated. A natural self-promoter, Andy Warhol made himself into a media sensation; he conflicted the original role of the artist.