Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change

by W. David Marx

This poses a logistical problem for creators: until they are accepted as high-status artists, transgressive behavior may be met with social disapproval and low status. “Matisse and Picasso in 1900,” theorist René Girard reminds us, “were considered incompetent by 99 per cent of their contemporaries.”