odern day artists have tendency to categorize themselves as Portrait artists, or Landscape artists, or Still-life artists, etc.  But the Masters of the past, however, were learned and savvied in all these genres and referred to themselves as professional Artists, with a capital A.  Their mastery was not limited nor defined by one genre, but rather by the mastery of many. Moreover, their ultimate goal was to create grand multi-figure realistic paintings, the kind of challenging works where they would use their knowledge and test their skills and truly explore themselves as a well-rounded and accomplished Artists. So let us set our goalpost high for achieving greatness, just as the Masters of the past did.