Revue Révolution

an invitation to help artists locate themselves within a living tradition

Editor’s Note

This article was first published in December 2023, at a time when the conversation around genius, wealth, and art felt particularly urgent. Its tone reflects that moment.

We re-present it here in the Foundations Archive because its core inquiry—into the nature of genius, the structural realities of artistic recognition, and the relationship between non-duality and creative expression—remains central to our ongoing work.

For readers from cultural institutions, foundations, and art educators, this essay offers a diagnostic lens: it names the gap between artistic training and the actual ecosystem artists must navigate. This gap is precisely what L’Atelier Révolution seeks to address, by helping institutions understand the artists they support, and helping artists understand the institutions that will recognize them.

—Murielle Mobengo

Genius is rare, but not only. Once divorced from its original transcendental essence—the Divine, the Creator, Nature, the Bestower of all gifts—genius reveals itself as a manifestation of ignorance and hubris (tamas, in Advaita Vedanta). These qualities, chaotic and destructive in nature, undermine all intelligence.

Archeology of Genius

In world mythologies, a genius is a supernatural guide and protector—the symbol of a person’s spiritual essence, the guardian of their destiny. The term may connect to the Arabic jinn, or the Latin gignere, to beget, produce. The French les gens (people) retains this original sense: those who have been generated.

In Roman mythology, the genius guarded a family, clan or destiny—akin to the Central African “familiar,” a personal protective spirit, a version of Socrates’daimon quartered to domestic affairs.

Across antiquity, genius was both divine and demonic, positive and negative.

Then came the Renaissance.

Da Vinci and Wealth

The perception of genius shifted during the Renaissance. The merchant states of Italy—Florence, Venice—operated under oligarchic systems, small, extremely wealthy lobbies which controlled politics, favored certain intellectuals and artists, and dictated cultural fashion.

Da Vinci himself moved through a network of influence: Verrocchio, the Borgias, the Sforzas, the Medicis, the Pope, the Duc d’Amboise, and King François I of France. Yet like most artists—then, now, and perhaps always—he came from a middle-class family. No, Da Vinci was not a billionaire.

Most artists come from humble backgrounds. Karol Jan Borowiecki’s 2019 study, The Origins of Creativity: The Case of the Arts in the United States since 1850, reveals this pattern clearly. Art, meanwhile, is about beauty—and beauty, in practice, is treated as a luxury, collected, displayed, and discussed by those who can afford it.

This creates a paradox the artist is rarely taught to navigate: their work will reach the public only after it has been crowned by the wealthy. The people who first recognize the artist will not be peers.

This is not a complaint, rather a structural reality. And naming it, early, would save artists years of confusion, and the degradation of creativity and well-being experienced by the many unseen Van Goghs of history. It would let them see the game clearly—and decide, consciously, how to play.

In art—and in certain intellectual domains where peer review does not exist to safeguard and validate performance—our contemporary era may have inherited an oligarchic and individualistic perception of genius from the Renaissance. Creative individuals, then as now, often tailored their work to suit the tastes and interests of the wealthy and influential. One of Revue Révolution’s early patrons refers to this phenomenon as “l’art officiel”—art that is sanctioned, approved, official.

The contemporary concept of “genius” has thus deviated from its original foundation, now equating to what French elegantly calls “l’entrisme”: individuals establishing dominance solely through access to wealth and influential networks.

In today’s world, the idea of artistic genius has drifted significantly from the remarkable accomplishments of figures like Da Vinci—in part because of the hegemony of technology, a domain the affluent control. Social media, the internet, and to some extent, AI, have diminished the artist’s curiosity, ingenuity, and capacity to operate within peer structures. Behold, the Individualistic Artist with a following, yet without lineage. Their skill may be commendable, but the unique capacity to revive Culture, to regenerate art movements, to converse with peers—this has been annihilated. If you wonder why art history seems to have had a hard stop at “contemporary art,” drying up the well of Genius, now you have a glimpse into the reason.

Excellence is commendable, but it is not Genius

Excellence should not be confused with genius; it is a natural outcome. What many perceive as genius in Da Vinci’s achievements is, in reality, the product of excellence, rigorous peer education and validation, and craftsmanship.

Under Master Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo learned to draw—a prerequisite he himself called “the true notion of the forms of things”—and few modern artists labeled or self-proclaimed as genius can truly claim such foundational training. Grinding pigments, preparing coatings, painting, cutting metals, sculpting, reading: these were his daily disciplines. However beautiful and mysterious his sfumato may be, it is a technique learned and refined through practice.

There is nothing genius in doing one’s job well and ultimately mastering it. You expect your dentist or cardiologist to be excellent at what they do, not merely average. The same should be expected of an artist over the course of a career. What they do, they do so well that one day, after decades, they teach.

That said, there is genius in Leonardo’s visionary scope: designing an ideal city with a hydraulic system capable of preventing pandemics, diverting rivers for military advantage, creating new musical instruments, laying the foundations of modern urban cartography and human anatomy—all in the 15th century.

His intellect ranged across literature (Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarch), natural sciences and history (Pliny the Elder), and engineering. Only fate—and perhaps a rare awareness of his own inner genii—can produce such a figure.

Who can control fate?

We cannot predict the next minute, let alone respond collectively to pandemics or political crises. Yet one man, five centuries ago, did. This is not romanticism; it is a measure of what becomes possible when genius is anchored in discipline, curiosity, and a selflessness that transcends ego.

So let us be honest: there is no genius of this order today, and no polymath either—Nicholas Roerich being one of the last visible exceptions of that magnitude in the West. Am I being pessimistic? Maybe. Or simply calling on for the rebuild of the conditions that make genius possible.

Beyond Curiosity and Talk

Genius transcends mere curiosity and talk; it materializes in performance, tangible results, and life-affirming endeavors—a legacy of knowledge that outlasts individual lifetimes. How many of us can honestly affirm that our work will be remembered six centuries from now?

The majority of contemporary poetry is forgettable within minutes. Poetic prowess and access to major publishing opportunities are now measured in social media following. If you’ve ever contemplated the lifespan of a tweet or the fleeting glory of a TikTok video, you know I am not exaggerating.

The same dynamics do not quite apply to visual artists. While they actively seek followers on social media, their exposure often hinges on who patronizes them. This talk by scientist Albert-László Barabási will either brighten or cloud your day—depending on whether you believe success in art is about talent and “following your bliss.”

Art & Plutocracy: An Old Story

In the broader context of human history, the ascendance of finance has promoted individual freedoms—a genuine good. Yet it has also produced a cultural logic in which recognition flows through wealth.

George Bernard Shaw, in Major Barbara (1905), gave voice to this tension:

“I want to arm the common man against the intellectual oligarchy—the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the artist, the politician—who, once in authority, is the most dangerous of all impostors.”

Shaw’s romanticism aside, his diagnosis holds: in a world increasingly split between those who have wealth and those who seek it, the artist faces a paradox. Their work will reach the public only after it has been crowned by the wealthy. In other words, the people who first recognize them will not be people like them.

Plato, in the Republic, warned that democracy falters when citizens pursue base desires (epithymia) over wisdom. Today, as we scroll past food selfies and algorithmic entertainment, intelligence itself is in peril. In such a context, polymathy simply cannot thrive.

Since the Renaissance, “genius” has been detached from its supernatural roots and affixed to the individual ego—corruptible, status-hungry, and easily dominated by those with means. The word “polymath” has followed the same trajectory.

“The young student should, in the first place, acquire a knowledge of perspective, to enable him to give to every object its proper dimensions: after which, it is requisite that he be under the care of an able master, to accustom him, by degrees, to a good style of drawing the parts. Next, he must study Nature, in order to confirm and fix in his mind the reason of those precepts which he has learnt. He must also bestow some time in viewing the works of various old masters, to form his eye and judgment, in order that he may be able to put in practice all that he has been taught.”
–Leonardo da Vinci, A Treatise on Painting

From the Archive: The Master-Disciple Relationship

From its inception in 2019 to 2024, Revue Révolution asked every poet and artist submitting work a simple question: In your craft, who is your Master?

We frequently received exquisite pieces from individuals who openly acknowledged their intellectual and artistic lineage. These poets and artists attributed their calling to a revered master from the past, whom they admired and sought to emulate. They did not take offense; they embraced the question.

Philosophers submitting to the journal responded with equal grace, expressing happiness and honor in acknowledging their philosophical lineage. (We recommend David Capps as one such example.)

Knowledge requires a proper channel of transmission. Throughout history, that conduit has been peer validation and the acknowledgment of lineage. The question “who is your Master?” is not a gatekeeping mechanism.

For museums, art educators and foundations, it is an invitation to help artists locate themselves within a living tradition.

For Cultural Institutions, Foundations, and Educators

How do we prepare artists more honestly for the ecosystem they will enter? How can patrons and institutions recognize art’s social impact and depth before the market does?

These are the questions L’Atelier Révolution explores with its partners. If they resonate with your work, we invite you to reach out.

institutions@revuerevolution.com

Murielle Mobengo is the founder and editor-in-chief of Revue Révolution, and curator of L’Atelier Révolution, a research and resource division for cultural institutions. Her work focuses on the intersections of art, myth, poetry, and non-dual philosophy (Advaita Vedanta and its Western parallels), and heritage transmission.

She is the creator of The Polymath, a pedagogical program that equips artists with the ethical and structural understanding to navigate the ecosystem of recognition. Her approach, rooted in the Non-Dual Gaze, helps institutions and artists alike locate themselves within a living tradition.