Patron, workshop and viewer
Work occurs in the relations of labor, money, institutions and expectations.
Key ideas
The order could determine the plot, size, material and location of the display. Workshops included apprentices and assistants, and authorship was distributed differently than the modern image of a solitary genius suggests. In printed graphics, the important things are the cutter, the printer and the publisher.
Looking deeper
Find out who the item was intended for and who could see it. The public wall, the altar and the private office create different conditions. The social context helps explain the choice, but does not make every formal detail a mechanical consequence of the will of the customer.
Compare the altar painting, the court portrait and the circulation poster.
Find the work in the museum's official catalog and start with a description of the visible details.Make a chain of participants: author, workshop, customer, intermediary, viewer.
External educational material or museum catalogue. The above review is not a literal translation of the source.