What are the differences between crafts and art?

To start talking about the differences between crafts and art, we must first ask ourselves what era we are talking about. Because, although it may seem amazing, what we today consider art was not always considered art, and what we currently consider as such was not always treated as craft.

So, How to distinguish between craft and art? What parameters can we apply when distinguishing between both concepts? And, most importantly, is it possible to distinguish them?

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Differences between crafts and art: the fine line between two concepts

The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines art as a manifestation of human activity through which the real or imagined is interpreted. If we take the definition of craftsmanship given by the same dictionary, we find that, according to the RAE, it is about the art or work produced by craftsmen. From these definitions, we extract two ideas.

The first is that, in both words, we find the same root, art, which in turn comes from the Latin ars, a term with plurality of meaning, since it can name art according to the concept that we have, but also a talent or a ability; These last two ideas are also found in craft work.

In second place, The definition given by the RAE of crafts includes the word art, since it refers to it as the art of craftsmen. Both concepts, therefore, are inextricably linked. So what are the differences?

The artists were also artisans

The concept that we have of art and of artists as creative geniuses of subjectivity is, in reality, very modern.. In fact, despite the fact that the idea arose in the Renaissance, in many places it did not fully take hold until well into the 18th century, thanks to the academies.

In the Middle Ages, what we call artists were mere craftsmen. There was no difference between a shoe maker, a basket maker, and a painter. All were included in the big bag of manual labor, that is, those that were carried out with the hands and (in principle) not with the intellect.

This type of occupation, the vile trades, were typical of the lower classes of the strict social hierarchy. It was unthinkable that the privileged, that is, the nobility and the clergy, would dedicate themselves to this type of work. and, in fact, there were not a few members of the aristocracy who had come down and preferred to live economically tight than to start working in some vile trade.

Perhaps the only exception were copyists and manuscript illuminators, usually monks and nuns who belonged, de facto, to the privileged state. Their obviously manual activity (they used pigments and brushes typical of painters to execute their work) was duly camouflaged as intellectuality so that it could associate adequately with its status. Thus, the miniaturists did not paint, they illuminated scholarly texts, written by learned characters from the past. We had here the necessary intellectual justification so that it was not a vile trade.

This is also why, in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, practically all the artists who signed his work were engaged in the illumination of manuscripts, a theoretically intellectual trade, not manual. But what about the fresco painters, the sculptors, the goldsmiths? We don't have the signature of any of them, just as we don't have the signature of the shoemakers, basket makers, and rope makers. In fact, very often, to cite the author of a medieval work, terms such as a work by the master of Cabestany are used, making reference to the fact that, despite the fact that we do not know its exact name, the similarity of techniques and aesthetics suggest that it was made by the same workshop.

A workshop work

We are going to take advantage of the fact that the concept of a workshop has appeared to point out an idea that we consider extremely important in this debate. And it is the idea of ​​the artist as an individual entity. Once again, this is a modern concept, the offspring of 18th century academicism and, especially, the 19th century.

Prior to the appearance of the concept of the artist as an intellectual creator (and even for many centuries after) the works were born from workshops, not from individual brushes or chisels. All artists with a certain prestige had a group of assistants and apprentices who supported them in the creation of commissions.. Let us remember that, as artisans that they still were, his working method was very similar to that of an artisan workshop: a master who directed and taught all the apprentices under his charge.

This is how they created great geniuses like Leonardo or Michelangelo, of course. We cannot imagine da Vinci alone in front of the canvas, working feverishly alone until the work magically came to life before his eyes. No, that is the artist of the 19th century, the romantic artist, not the workshop artist of the Renaissance, son of the medieval artist-craftsmen. In fact, this confusion resulting from concepts taken out of context has led to more than one misunderstanding.

For example, in the cartouche of the Gioconda that the Louvre preserves, it can be read that it is a work of Leonardo. However, its twin in the Prado Museum is classified as a workshop work. From Leonardo's studio, of course, but wasn't the Mona Lisa in the Louvre also from his studio?

We insist: before the appearance of the tormented romantic artist, creator of the great artistic subjectivity, artists work in workshops. Of Rubens's canvases, probably a few brushstrokes are by Rubens, the sketch at most. The rest is the result of the hands of dozens of assistants who worked for him.

So artist or craftsman?

We have commented that the concept of the artist as an intellectual creator began in the Renaissance; specifically, with the publication of the treatise De pictura by León Battista Alberti (1404-1472), where the intellectualization of art is claimed. From then on, and unlike medieval times, the artist will be considered an intellectual worker, and not a mere craftsman..

But we have already seen that, in practice, this is not exactly the case. Rubens and company had workshops, and they worked in them with apprentices, in the purest style of the artisan guilds. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the concept of the artist as an intellectual did not spread with the same speed in all parts of Europe. In the 17th century, when the idea was already more or less accepted in Italy, Velázquez was still fighting in Spain for his work to be recognized as something more than mere craftsmanship.

It was necessary to clarify all the preceding points before attacking the question that is the basis of our article: what are the differences between crafts and art? Speaking from our current world, we could say that art is linked to intellectuality and social prestige. Works of art are expensive in the market, and the names of the artists shake hands practically with the gods. On the other hand, artisan objects, despite the fact that they can arouse great admiration, do not have this social glory that artistic works do.

We will give a clear example that will perfectly illustrate what we are saying. If a deliciously made shoe comes into our hands, but which comes from a craft workshop we don't know nor the name (and that, moreover, he has produced several shoes in one day) we could possibly talk about him in terms of craftsmanship. On the contrary, if what we receive is a shoe from one of the most famous brands in the world, the most It is probable that we would not use the word craft to refer to it, but that we would speak of a work of art. art.

Despite the fact that the shoe company in question also mass-produces (and, what is certain, a lot of greater quantity than the workshop), the prestigious name will give us enough reasons not to call it craft.

Because, Is there any difference between a craftsman who produces shoes in his modest workshop and a painter who executes his works in a studio? No, it is only prestige that counts. A shoe artisan may put all his soul into his creations, while the considerate artist may be simply carrying out a commercial assignment.

The artist's prestige began to take shape in the Renaissance, when art began to be separated from crafts. However, for a medieval man, the question at the top of our article would have been ridiculous.