Trash said:
I was actually thinking about the works of Rembrandt and other masters of that period that often painted portraits and did so for a living. This is something a militia ordered as a nice remembrance, yet it is nowadays seen as a marvelous piece of art.
Michelangelo worked on commission as well. Indeed, the very idea of art for art's sake didn't even exist prior to the 19th century. Art was always seen purely from an utilitarian point of view. I'd reckon there probably isn't any other context. This is why i always stressed more on the idea of genius, the concept of art being essentially irrelevant.
To elucidate what i mean, lets compare this not so great painting by Michelangelo:
against one of Raphael's most outstanding ones:
Both paintings are of course purely utilitarian in nature, that is, their purpose is not to be
artistic, based on some arbitrary parameter, but to simply represent a scene. Yet, in the case of Michelangelo, he infuses something in his depiction that strikes us as real. It is the
Deluge that we see in his painting, and we see it the way Michelangelo sees it, through the eyes of a genius. The Raphael is more technically accomplished, and yet, it is a complete and utter failure. He paints a scene here, and scene there, but the actual event is completely lost. There is no unity of any kind, no deeper insight into the essence of the event being depicted. Even the Pope, the very center piece of the story, whom legend says extinguished the fire with his benediction, appears in the distance, small and insignificant. Everything that could have made this picture great is completely missing. Is it art? Probably not, but it pretends to be, which is why it is considered art anyway since most people cannot understand genius in the first place.