Anguish Among Artists

When Anguish Among Artists Became Both Respected and Expected

By ALAN RIDING @ NYTimes

LONDON, July 26 — When exactly did artists decide that they were different from ordinary mortals, that in all likelihood they were superior to the rest of us? Or, viewed differently, when were they granted such a privileged status? When did Western societies start venerating them as sensitive, misunderstood geniuses?

For a long time, it seems, being a great artist — a “skilled manual worker,” as Samuel Johnson put it — was enough. For Bach and Mozart, for Rembrandt and Titian, even for Shakespeare, their art was their job. Their output was valued, but in a social order dominated by church, royal court and wealthy patrons, their standing was not high.

Then came the Romantic movement, and with it, artists turned from pleasing the world to indulging themselves: they rebelled against conventions, proclaimed their uniqueness, disdained the bourgeoisie as philistine, savored their own melancholy and formed cliques. Many also chose a bohemian lifestyle to exhibit their otherness.

How this change came about is explored in “Rebels and Martyrs: The Image of the Artist in the 19th Century,” an entertaining exhibition at the National Gallery in London through Aug. 28. It addresses only painters (as well as Rodin), but the shadow of Byron, Goethe, Baudelaire and other writers is never far away. And, perhaps most intriguingly, it shows how the Romantic artist still influences the image of the artist today. “In our oh-so-civilized society, it is necessary for me to lead the life of a savage,” Gustave Courbet, the 19th-century French painter, noted theatrically. “To do that, I have just set out on the great, independent, vagabond life of the bohemian.”