A lot of pre-modern was performed anonymously and for a greater cause—icon-painting, cathedral-building and so on. The artist as a high-profile “star” is something modern societies seem to have invented, perhaps as a substitute priesthood for progressives.
I don’t quite disagree, but “modern” can be a somewhat confusing term. William Shakespeare lived during what is now called the early modern period, and he was far from a “star” among his contemporaries; more importantly, even very notable men of letters who lived at the same time seem to only have been ‘notable’ among a highly restricted elite, and artists themselves were even lower status. It is really only with the industrial age (and related developments in culture, available media and the like) that it makes sense to start positing people in the arts (understood in a broad sense) as high-profile ‘stars’. There was definitely a sense of a “substitute priesthood” in the service of broadly secular values, but I’m not sure if I’d call that “progressive” in any real sense, since ideas of individualism and self-reliance were in fact quite influential, in a way that would be regarded as quite anti-”progressive” these days.
A lot of pre-modern was performed anonymously and for a greater cause—icon-painting, cathedral-building and so on. The artist as a high-profile “star” is something modern societies seem to have invented, perhaps as a substitute priesthood for progressives.
I don’t quite disagree, but “modern” can be a somewhat confusing term. William Shakespeare lived during what is now called the early modern period, and he was far from a “star” among his contemporaries; more importantly, even very notable men of letters who lived at the same time seem to only have been ‘notable’ among a highly restricted elite, and artists themselves were even lower status. It is really only with the industrial age (and related developments in culture, available media and the like) that it makes sense to start positing people in the arts (understood in a broad sense) as high-profile ‘stars’. There was definitely a sense of a “substitute priesthood” in the service of broadly secular values, but I’m not sure if I’d call that “progressive” in any real sense, since ideas of individualism and self-reliance were in fact quite influential, in a way that would be regarded as quite anti-”progressive” these days.