the concept or word “artist” existed in original contexts.

[keannu]

12th graders mock test 2018-9-37

Today the term artist is used to refer to a broad range of creative individuals across the globe from both past and present. This rather general usage erroneously suggests that the concept or word “artist” existed in original contexts.

In contrast to the diversity it is applied to, the meaning of this term continues to be mostly based on Western views and values. Since the fifteenth century, this tradition has been concerned with recognizing individual achievements.

Inventions, ideas, and discoveries have been credited to the persons who originated them. This view is also at the core of the definition of an “artist.” Artists are perceived to establish a strong bond with their art to the point of combining into one “entity.”

Art history has reinforced this oneness: A painting by Pablo Picasso is called “a Picasso.” This union between artists and their work has determined the essential qualities of an artist: originality, authorship, and authenticity.
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1. What does the first underlined mean, especially "original contexts"?
2. I can't understand the second and the third underlined sentences at all. Could you let me know?

 

[Tdol]

1 It honestly means nothing to me.
2 Great artists are identified with their works to such an extent that an instance can be labelled as such. If you do a drawing, I am not going to say it's a Keannu, but we can say it's a Van Gogh if we're looking at one of his. It's not much of a point, but it is, at least, comprehensible. Artists who are that distinctive can have their work labelled this way.

 

[Tarheel]

What's it a test of?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I don't understand the first or second sentence.

In the other two sentences, the writer is saying (awkwardly) that famous visual artists' names are used to describe their paintings.

It seems to silly to draw any broad cultural conclusion from that. We don't call a book "a Hemingway" or a play "a Shakespeare" or a song "a Taylor Swift." If we call a painting a Picasso, so what?

And "originality, authorship, and authenticity" are vague and arbitrary labels that don't prove or define anything.

So I judge the entire piece to be meaningless.

 

[Tdol]

I should have pointed out that a + artist's name is not used across the arts, though architects and sculptors also apply.