What Makes an Artist “Great”? : Crash Course Art History #4
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- Опубликовано: 4 июн 2024
- Michelangelo. Vincent Van Gogh. Pablo Picasso. The story of art history is told through the biographies of individual celebrity artists. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn about where the myth of the Great Artist comes from - and why it might be time for a new perspective.
Introduction: "Great Artists" 00:00
Guilds 00:55
The Medicis 02:13
Vasari & the "Great Artist" 03:08
Art Academies 05:20
Great (Women) Artists 07:15
Modern Ideas of Greatness 08:58
Review & Credits 10:25
Image Descriptions: docs.google.com/document/d/1E...
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1G...
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Reminds me of how we still apply the great artist myth to collaborative mediums like movies and television. Often the director or show runner is solely credited as the genius behind them despite hundreds of people being involved in the making and production of them.
This. I make a point of adding "and crew" after every director's name I drop in casual conversation. It's delicate. But potent.
Allow me to elaborate why directors and TV runners get credited for what they do,
No doubt it's a collaborative medium nevertheless you cannot call the essence of the films and TV concepts as collaborative, sure the involvement could be present of others but it's only limited to the understanding of its idea.
Not necessarily the cast and crew should take part, besides playing the mere part that they have been attributed with.
It's as if asking the construction workers should also be given credit for developing the idea of a beautiful architecture, no it's the architect and the engineer who solely reserves the right of credit for developing that idea, surely the construction workers will earn credit for their exceptional work attribution.
😊
I mean same thing with scientists.
Same thing with pop artists and CEOs of big companies
In times past, the director or producer was the driving force behind the film
e.g Francis Ford Coppola remortgaged his house to produce Apocalypse Now
Selznick had a huge input in producing films that faithfully copied classic books e.g. Gone With The Wind
Ken Russell films
Ingmar Bergman films
Jean Luc Goddard films
Woody Allen films
The list goes on and on
Of course untalented people like to think that they can do the same as these people
But why don't they ?
Nowadays films are made by Committees or Bankers or Political Groups
Hollywood is dying and being replaced by new media.
4:17 Tangential, but those babies are hella buff. They need to drop the workout routine.
What I find pretty interesting is, I saw plenty of great artists in museums when I lived in Japan. That's a culture that doesn't really praise individuals compared to collectives, and yet they still treat their art history/criticism the same way a lot of Europeans do. I don't know if that's because Japan adopted a lot of the Western (for lack of a better term) approaches to education and intellectual pursuits, so they decided to present things that way, or if they thought Hokusai and others were great individual artists back in their time as well.
7:15, the AGO in Toronto currently has an exhibit of women artists in Europe from 1400-1800. On till July 1, 2024, it showcases all the ways women made their mark in the art world at the time.
Oh, thanks, I'll be in town before then, I'll have to check it out.
What makes an artist great is the artist, what makes an artist significant is being noticed.
that's just it!
I was watching another yt video about the invention of the guitar. There wasn't one person who made a guitar one day. There were ouds, lutes, mandors, and gitterns. But this was NOT a march of progress change. The style of music changed, who made music change, and the cost and types of materials changed. We have the guitar the way it is now because it suits our current musical tastes and is an affordable approachable instrument. Maybe the future popular artists will be a type of art that computers can't copy.
All through this I kept recalling something I saw over on the Art Assignment, a video clip where a woman was saying "Art must be beautiful, Artist must be beautiful." That moment really stuck with me as a kind of condensation of this myth of the great artist. Especially because it REALLY hammers home the need to question the truth and usefulness of that myth.
Which, not so incidentally, is why I started taking my fiction writing a hell of a lot more seriously.
I am loving this Crashcourse series! Thank you!
this is such an interesting take on how "great" artists are made
all this info and i'm just jiddy i learned the etymological source of "masterwork"
I love this so much! Break those old myths and bring the artists that got written out or written off to the forefront. I was recently flipping through an encyclopedia of Great Artists (printed in like 1977) and I had to look hard to find anyone who wasn't a European male. The ratio of men to women was probably 500 to 1, and it made my blood boil.
"... Chicken nugget of genius ..." made me laugh!
I'd like to learn more about the narrative they mention at 08:09 about the Greek myth of the potter's daughter and her charcoal drawing of her lover's shadow. Where can I read more about it? I can't seem to find any reference in the Sources document.
there's a little background info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butades
Sarah I love the educational content you make. You walk the line of content, joke, and relatability. I missed you since the Art Assignment.
Hoping to hear about Picasso, Dali and Warhol in the next episode!
Loving this series.
I took Art History many years ago.
This is a VERY different take!
This series is 1000x better and more informative then the art history course I had to take and pay nearly $2k for 🙃
It'd be nice to see a covering of the ideas of how art history was created and recorded on non-European cultures.
Great episode, thanks for sharing.
I am so enjoying this!
Hi ❤ l'm from Syria and study biology from here (Crash Course)
I can smell the “certain austrian painter” memes coming from a mile away
Very cool thanks.
Im curious how this translates to East Asian artists like Hokusai, who is prominent despite the lack of European influence
This is a really great point. Smart History covers them occasionally. Unkei, Josetsu, Kanō Sansetsu, Hokusai and many others all seem to have gained individual prominence without any help from Vasari 🙂
thank you👏👏
Knowledge sharing.❤
Than you ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ for helping a 5 class kid
I missed you so much!!
Artists are far better then most celebrities these days in reality
Wonderful series
i´m so happy
Im curious how art was thought about during this time period in different cultures and locations. Asian art specifically but other of course. What made a capital G great artist in China/Zhongguo or Ayutthaya/Thailand etc. ?
❤❤
Da Vinci was certainly a genius for sure
Guild to commission shift reminds me a lot of the AI shift that's happening now
Bob Ross was a MASTER.
❤
Artist are not geniuses. Often times they aren't smart at all. I work as an artist so this isn't shade, but an obvious derivation from dealing with artist in an industry that mixes art and math. Artist being able to interface is always the bottleneck.
Furthermore, many artist of the past people consider great made art in "secrecy." They did it to protect the sauce. Art is not that hard. Anyone can do it with dedication to the craft, and many times to get the super high quality paintings people always laud as "real" art or whatever, it just involves a lot of time and techniques like tracing. Even sculpting is a super advanced form of tracing generally. I think people just put magic to artist and then mix that with celebrity. It happens always. A mechanic might work as a mechanic a long time and have similar skills relatively speaking to an artist, it's just no one cares because you don't show fixing cars in history books.
Colleen Barry
Did she just call me a screen? 😂
So what makes a great artist is made up by arbitrary societal standards? Cool take but it doesn't help me understand what makes an artist great... Was Pablo Picasso not great? Andy Warhol? Michelangelo?
Maybe a Frida Kahlo?
I don't know if I add Warhol into the great category.
They used to be DaVinci era but past say 1881 they are just tallented. Taking a pic of a soup can isnt genius painting starry night isnt either they didnt give the world anything else like Gallego or DaVinci
Yes, Frieda is a great of Art History.
She's definitely capital-G Great, but it sucks that she's also usually just the token woman artist that people throw in to be "inclusive".
Unforgiving authenticity
So what makes an artist great?
I am trying to understand art
you already do, just love the art you love
It's true that there are no great artists.... anymore
I'm going to say "No" in that in general I don't believe genius...exists, at least not as a separate force in people.
All humans are good at something and no one is born predestined to do something greater than another
Genius and mastery is something you pursue, not something you simply are.
I would put in another way: Genius exists in everyone at all times it´s just that many people don´t realize that and because of that they never found "their" genius like you said all humans have something they are good at and I think that everyone has a vision only they have so they can do things only they can do
at least that´s what I think
Easy.. they're not. Just got on the right side of the hype machine.
I thought you would talk about about what makes and artist great and then you divert us by talking about women artist and discrimination faced by them.
I agree about the discrimination part but make a separate video about.
I bet money it's actually a woman behind alot of these artists, who end up getting no credit
In today’s world? How well they can simp for the rich
Just like great musicians, great artists are decided by the fans