ABSTRACT
Throughout the twentieth-century both the role of the artist and the technical definition of the work of art have been stretched. ‘Everyone is talented’: this proposition, for instance, is common to both the Surrealists and the Bauhaus educators. Moholy-Nagy believed in everybody's ‘capacity for developing the creative energies in his nature’, which is not far from André Breton's belief that access to his Unconscious mind makes every man a poet. Such ideas combine to subvert the compact, professional image of the artist as the possessor and exponent of unique skills. As a result, the reach of the artist has been increased and the area that could be claimed as art has expanded. The definition of art has dilated, like cinema screens in the Big Screen revolution of the 1950s.
