OFFICIAL41 According to the professor, how is a building project like a ballet?

[00:00.00]MALE: PROFESSOR OK, as art historians, one of our fundamental tasks is to assign authorship to works of art, right? [00:07.63]We're presented with a work of art, and we have to figure out who made it. [00:11.65]But this task becomes particularly difficult when we're dealing with works produced in Italy during the Renaissance—the sixteenth, seventeenth centuries.
[00:20.35]Now why is this the case? [00:22.54]Anyone? Emily.
[00:25.62]FEMALE STUDENT: Um, is it 'cause artists didn't sign their work? [00:28.60]I mean, didn't the whole concept of the artist as an individual develop later, [00:32.61]in like the nineteenth century?
[00:34.53]MALE PROFESSOR: Well, you're sort of on the right track. [00:37.36]The concept of the individual artist—especially the concept of the artist as an artistic genius, bleh, struggling alone with a vision…as opposed to, say, a mere artisan—well the idea of the artist as a lone genius didn’t develop until later.
[00:53.21]But artists, individual artists, did sign their work during the Renaissance. [00:58.33]In fact, you could say that’s part of the problem… [01:01.28]Paintings were signed by the artist, and that used to be understood to be a mark of Renaissance individualism. [01:07.98]If a piece had Raphael’s signature on it, we assumed it was done by the great artist himself—[01:13.03]Raphael, in the singular.
[01:16.02]But you see, art in Renaissance Italy was very much a collaborative business. [01:21.21]Painters and sculptors worked in a workshop. [01:24.66]It was almost like a small business run by…a master artist.
[01:29.64]You see, to deal with the wide variety of commissions they received—orders, basically, for specific types of art, specific projects—to handle these, master artists often employed assistants, as apprentices. [01:43.50]An-and this was especially so if they worked on a large scale, huge paintings or sculptures, or if they were much in demand, like Raphael for instance.
[01:53.62]He worked on some large paintings: [01:55.46]He painted frescoes for the Vatican. [01:58.38]He also received a great many commissions.[02:01.13]There’s no way he could have completed every part of every project all by himself!
[02:06.43]Now these assistants might work for the master artist on a temporary or a permanent basis, [02:11.93]and they might also specialize. [02:14.13]For example, in Raphael's workshop, which might be called “Raphael Incorporated,” one of the assistants specialized in animals. [02:22.55]He actually painted a good number of the animals in Raphael’s art. [02:26.91]It may be that a master signing a work was simply making a declaration that the work met the standards of the shop.
[02:34.10]And it wasn't just painters. [02:36.60]Sculptors also worked together; [02:38.75]in fact, assistants were even more necessary if you were a master sculptor, because statues take longer to make than paintings. [02:45.37]And the master had to arrange for marble to be quarried, things like that.
[02:49.70]And perhaps the most collaborative of all was architecture. [02:54.35]There we see a real division of labor, what with carpenters, masons, unskilled labor just to carry materials to and fro, and so on. [03:03.08]Plus, of course, your skilled artisans, who carried out the master architect's design. [03:09.09]Think of it like, uh, a ballet, you know? [03:12.43]All the dancers work together. [03:14.56]There's a division of labor, [03:16.10]people have different roles, [03:17.48]and in order for the thing to come together, everyone needs to be aware of what others are doing, and coordinate their work, and have good timing.
[03:25.77]So for architecture, it's almost impossible to know who was responsible for any given detail. [03:33.04]Was it the master architect? [03:35.17]The mason? [03:36.16]An assistant mason? [03:37.48]Maybe it was even the patron, the client who was paying for the art.
[03:41.53]Remember, it wasn't yet customary for architects to give their assistants measured drawings to work from. [03:47.82]Instructions were given orally, not in writing, [03:51.25]so we don't have those documents to tell us what, exactly, the master architect's plans were. [03:57.08]The only time we have written records is when the architect wasn't actually there—[04:01.72]perhaps the architect was away on business, and had to write out instructions and send them to the shop.
[04:07.50]And another thing to think about: What effect do you suppose this approach would have had on innovation?
[04:14.58]I mean, since the hired artisans had been trained by other artisans, they tended to be trained to use traditional styles and techniques. [04:23.50]So if you're a master architect, um, and you’ve developed your own style—[04:28.46]say you're calling for a certain detail in a building you're designing, right? [04:32.22]And say this detail is different—purposely different—from the established tradition, the established style.
[04:39.04]Well, most likely, when the hired artisans would execute the design, rather than follow the intended design, they'd stick with the more traditional style that they were familiar with. [04:49.88]Workers would have to be supervised very closely to prevent this from happening. [04:54.47]Otherwise, as often happened, there goes the designer's style and creativity.