So let’s say I wanted to become a painter in the USSR how would I achieve that. I know that you could go to school for say engineering and then get assigned a job when you got out of school so did it work the same way for artistic endeavors? Or would you first get assigned a job and then in your free time pursue the artistic endeavor. Basically, were you an artist first, or where you say a steelworker who was an artist second until you got enough of a base to pursue being an artist full time?

  • Soviet Snake
    6•2 years ago

    The distinction between artist and worker is not real, honestly, it began during the Renaissance, since at the times most workers were artisans, including painters, pottery makers, sculptors, musicians, and so on. Actually, if you read the etymology of both artisans and artists they share the same origin, basically an artist started to be differentiated from an artisan from its tighter role with the higher classes, this then took the modern meaning where an artist is basically an individual who is transformed into a bourgeois to create art; but at the time the distinction was non existent, since every worker produced unique items with particular designs.

    artisan (n.)

    1530s, “one skilled in any mechanical art, craftsman,” from Italian artigiano, from Vulgar Latin *artitianus, from Latin artitus “skilled,” past participle of artire “to instruct in the arts,” from ars (genitive artis) “art” (see art (n.)). Barnhart reports French artisan, often given as the direct source of the English word, is attested too late to be so.

    artist (n.)

    1580s, “one who cultivates one of the fine arts,” from French artiste (14c.), from Italian artista, from Medieval Latin artista, from Latin ars (see art (n.)).

    Originally especially of the arts presided over by the Muses (history, poetry, comedy, tragedy, music, dancing, astronomy), but also used 17c. for “one skilled in any art or craft” (including professors, surgeons, craftsmen, cooks). Since mid-18c. especially of “one who practices the arts of design or visual arts.”

    • @lxvi
      1•2 years ago

      Labor in the social sense should be understood as anything that expands or reproduces social wealth. This would include material utility but also maintenance and development of the superstructure.

      Basic needs have to be met, but after that the labor of artists, authors, and thinkers are at least as important as production of luxury goods. The superstructure is the greater language in which we place ourselves and others.