Custom Paintings and the History of Custom Art Or Patronage

In a few ways, all art is "custom art." The majority of the great masters had a patron, who'd commission his artist to make a certain bit of artwork, for a particular purpose. These days, a paying customer does the same thing-he or she makes a request for something to be created, and the artist creates it.

A big difference between then and now, however, is that today, everyone can approach an artist and make a request. These days, that's often done by way of a website. Suppose you're buying a new house, or renovating your overall home, and you would like art to fill it. Or you're a business owner and want elegant art to decorate your offices. You approach an artist with that request, and he or she fills it. No matter what your taste or purpose in the art you want, the artist can fulfill that which you want. It's like buying something before it's created.

That's precisely what the patrons of days gone by did. Kings and popes, for instance, supported not merely artists, but musicians. Patronage of the arts from the ancient world onward, even to today, was extremely important in the real history of art. It simply happened most frequently in medieval and Renaissance Europe, and in places and times with a royal or imperial system dominated by an aristocracy that dominated society and controlled most of its resources.

Michelangelo, for instance, was commissioned between 1508 and 1512 by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. Michelangelo resented the commission when he felt that the work only served the Pope's requirement for grandeur, however the ceiling, and especially "The Last Judgment," is widely considered his crowning achievement in tablouri personalizate.

The wealthy used patronage of the arts to endorse their political ambitions, social positions, and prestige. Much of portraiture art was commissioned by patrons, who wanted an aesthetic representation of themselves. Portraits are often important state and family records. Every U.S. president since George Washington has already established to sit for a portrait for historical records. Portraits have historically memorialized the rich and powerful, but as time moved by, middle-class patrons, along with corporations, groups, and clubs, have commissioned portraits of their own families and colleagues.

Some patrons, such as the Medici of Florence, used patronage to "cleanse" wealth ill-gotten through usury in the 14th century. Art patronage was also important in the creation of religious art; the Roman Catholic Church, and later Protestant churches, sponsored art and architecture to decorate cathedrals and churches. Art patronage has been, until relatively recently, been neglected in the research of art history. It's sure that a lot of the art created throughout history has been due to the patronage of these individuals.

Art patronage, in its historical and traditional forms, started initially to end in the 19th century, with the rise of bourgeois and capitalist social forms in Europe. An even more publicly-supported system of museums, mass audiences, and mass consumption has replaced the old system of patronage. These days, the character of the patrons has changed, from aristocrats to convey governments and from churches to charitable institutions.

Peter Dranitsin is a home taught and self representing abstract artist. He spent my youth in the household where his mother an expert artist and his father an expert photographer.