Labor, Artistic

Art has always depended on labor. Creative work traditionally developed from collective labor within a social and cultural framework. Since antiquity, theories of art have explored the function of art in society and whether it can be considered productive labor. Artists from the arts and crafts movement, such as William Morris and John Ruskin, viewed art as a way to resist the industrialization of the modern era. Other modern thinkers, such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, and members of the Frankfurt School, wrote about the economic, political, and social significance of labor and art. Of special significance were the views of high art as the result of genius and inspiration and of nonprivileged forms of art as crafts or lowly arts. Today, because of reproduction and ...