Back [in] the Middle Ages, when artists were craftsmen and belonged to guilds…[a]rt was a job, like glassblowing. With the Renaissance came creative liberation. The artist gained sanction to develop his own character and style. “The more artists disengaged themselves from craftsmen,” write the Wittkowers, “the more they were expected to display—did display—symptoms of behavior not associated with the rank and file citizen.”
Tom Jokinen, “The Myth of the Tortured Artist,” quoting from Margot and Rudolf Wittkower’s Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists
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