The Professionalization of Painting in Europe
Before the eleventh century most painters in Europe were monks (members of a religious group that lives in seclusion) and their work was exclusively religious. Such artists worked in a variety of art forms, including metalwork and manuscript illumination(the art of illustrating handwritten books), and they did not sign their work, as art was considered an opportunity for religious meditation not self-advancement. Between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries, however, painting began being practiced by lay professionals, who had no connection to religious institutions. Inevitably, this had consequences both for working practices and for the art that was produced. These new painters followed a trade like any other. Like the woodworker, the potter, the baker and the weaver, the lay painter offered his technical proficiency for fee. He was by no means above asking the baker for use of his ovens to make charcoal, employed as a black pigment. Nor would the artist sneer at the cook, with whom he had many skills in common.
One of the consequences of this transition from monk to artisan was increasing specialization. Painters were painters, not to be confused with illuminators, dyers, or workers in wood and metal. Such distinctions were rigidly enforced by the guilds-powerful associations of workers within specific trades-that developed to safeguard the employment of tradespeople against competition and economic uncertainty, so that it would have been unthinkable for a painter to be called in to illuminate a book page. There were even fine distinctions drawn among painters. In fifteenth-century Spain one could find cialists in altarpiece painting (the painting of images for placement behind the altar of a church). fabric painting, and interior decorating. Associated with these divisions was a hierarchy of trades in which status tended to reflect the value of the materials. Goldsmiths were the most prestigious and powerful artisans, painters more humble, and woodworkers still more so. Guild restrictions prohibited the use of the most valuable pigments (coloring substances), such as ultramarine, for lowly purposes such as the painting of playing cards, carts, or parrot perches. Thus these valuable pigments played role in establishing the social standing of painters: it was in their interests to use fine materials.
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