For as long as there have been artists, there have been apprentices. Sometimes those apprentices went on to become renowned masters, sometimes they languished in obscurity.
This is about artists going to people who are already experts in their field and having them construct the art, but taking (or being given) all of the credit for it.
Are you morally outraged that Marc Jacobs does not personally cut and sew every garment bearing his name? Are you shocked to learn that many pop stars are entirely unable to write, produce or play music?
No, it's not. There is no training being given. These are not apprentices learning how to create art, they are skilled professionals carrying out work that the artist themselves is often incapable of. An apprentice learns their skills from their master and could be seen as a creation of the master, art technicians are simply there to do the work.
> Are you morally outraged that Marc Jacobs does not personally cut and sew every garment bearing his name? Are you shocked to learn that many pop stars are entirely unable to write, produce or play music?
No, and I never said I was outraged at the art technicians not getting credit, since they themselves are certainly don't seem to be. However there the public perception is that the artist who gets the credit is the one who did the majority of the work when this if often not the case.
And a modern artist told his technician how to do his work.
In this sense, I think the boundary is much more fluent. In my personal opinion, the artist is the person who has the "most established name" to sell the piece of art that he branded under his name to rich people.
So your suggestion, of course refined gallantly in a way that makes it presentable in polite society, does not sound that absurd to me.
http://www.danikaravan.com/portfolio-item/two-environments-f...
The artist actually sculpted everything in clay (in scale models) or made rather accurate sketches on paper, then they were adapted/modified slightly (and interactively with the artist) to make them actually "buildable" (either in wood or in pre-cast concrete) and transportable to the exhibition site.
It never came to our minds that the "art" in the scupltures was not entirely by the artist, my father considered himself an artisan, and simply executed (well and in practice) what the artist view was.