The word genius can describe extraordinary artistic decisions, but it often hides social privilege. Large workshops depended on assistants’ hands, family wealth purchased time for training, and partners managed correspondence and domestic life. One signature remained while the network that enabled it receded.nnAcknowledging this does not deny the ability of Michelangelo or Picasso; it distributes credit more accurately.
When art history is read through collaboration, access and visibility rather than peaks alone, the question ‘why were there no other geniuses?’ changes: who was allowed to work, whose objects were preserved, and whose name entered the record?
