preview

Filippino Scandal

Decent Essays
Open Document
In the beginning of fifteenth century, trading pictures were more focused on the materials being made, but then it had changed to focus more on the artists’ skills at the end of the century. According to Baxandall, before work began, there was often a contract for the artists that specified the materials being used, the delivery date, and how much the artist would be paid for. Moreover, since “money is very important in the history of art (Baxandall, p.1),” the final product of the art was depended on how much the client paid for the artists. In the beginning, paintings were more for self-satisfaction, as it showed how great you were at spending the money right. For example, Giovanni Rucellai showed his satisfaction of those paintings he owned in his house through his motives. The paintings gave him “the greatest contentment and the greatest pleasure because they serve the glory of God, the honour of the city, and the commemoration of myself (Baxandall, p.2).” In addition to that, it gave him the “pleasure and virtue of spending money well…show more content…
The higher your skill is, the higher you get paid for- which might be unfair for the people who worked under those “masters” of skills. For instance, “When Filippino Lippi contracted … the work should be ‘… all from his own hand, … (Baxandall, p.22).” For larger paintings, the apprentice or the “less” skillful could do the work but the master had to be presented. By the middle of the century, people were more aware of “the expensiveness of pictorial skill (Baxandall, p.23),” and by the end of the century, “client seems to have made his opulent gestures more and more by becoming a conspicuous buyer of skill (Baxandall, p.23). Although I am not sure about the “myth” of creative genius, but I think it is how people think highly of a person, that he/she can do something that we cannot do and so we envy him/her because we are not
Get Access
Related
Get Access