The Rise of the Individual Artist

The Renaissance started to dignify creative individuals with the same status that, before that sort of canonical deities had. The deity becoming identifiably individual instead of formulaic and abstractly represented almost like a hero glyph. And it isn't until the Renaissance kicks in, especially Northern Italy, where the divine people, Christ, say, and Mary start to take on recognizably human forms. That seems to me to coincide with the idea of the great artist and the great independent artist which is a very strange concept.