In 1965 the Tate Gallery in London held a retrospective of the great 20th century artist Alberto Giacometti. At the end of the show, which had been a big success, the artist was taken to lunch by Norman Reid the Director, Andrew Forge, a trustee, and David Sylvester, who had curated the exhibition. At the end of the meal they presented him with their shortlist of his works and asked him how many he would let them have for £20,000. He replied: "All of them for £10,000". In 2010 'L'Homme Qui Marche I' sold at auction for £65 million. One can only imagine how Giacometti would have reacted to this, but such stories suggest he would have been dismissive. Simone de Beauvoir had written of him: ‘Success, fame, money - Giacometti was indifferent to them all.’ The artist himself had said: ‘Establishing yourself, furnishing a house, building up a comfortable existence, and having that menace hanging over your head all the time - no, I prefer to live in hotels, cafés, just passing through.’

Giacometti is a fine example of the idea - born out of Romanticism - of the artist in their garret, pursuing art as a noble cause. How different it had been in the Renaissance when painters and sculptors possessed tremendous commercial sense. They competed fiercely for commissions and status, a status that could only be conferred by patrons, and though genius, passion and creativity drove them they functioned first and foremost as artisans. The artist as hero-outsider, as some kind of troubled yet all-feeling soul, was very much a child of the 19th century. The characters of Rodolfo and Marcello in Puccini's opera La Bohème (1896) were only able to captivate early 20th century audiences because of the proliferation of real-life examples that had emerged from the 1840s onwards. By the time Giacometti arrived in Paris in 1926 the pauper spirits of Van Gogh, Lautrec, and Utrillo had all contributed to fin-de-siècle Montmartre, and it is hard to imagine that he did not appreciate that legacy. But by 1926 Romanticism was long since dead; all the colours of the Belle Époque had sunk beyond trace in the mud and blood of the first world war. His studio, in Rue Hippolyte-Maindron (just behind Montmartre), was little more than 20 metres square, yet to him it was enough, and would remain so for the rest of his life. It suited his existential temperament, and from this humble base it was only a short walk to the Café de Flore where he would forge friendships with many artists and writers, notably Sartre, Beckett and Bacon.

Giacometti's mature work with its stark world-view, and very narrow range of subjects, is enriched by the depth of his observations and critical integrity. The austerity of his life and work, and that of many of his contemporaries in the post war School of Paris, is an understandable response to the suffering and damage done by two world wars. Yet importantly not all artists felt the need to wrestle with being poor to find a valid response to world events. Picasso, that early ambassador for the very 20th century idea of artist as celebrity, was quick to escape the bohemian Bateau-Lavoir and embrace the trappings of his early success. Much of that success was thanks to the patronage of Vollard and the Steins, and in the decades that followed other such artist-dealer relationships would further promote the idea of the 'modern artist'. By the 1960s, helped by the influence of popular music and youth culture, young artists such as Hockney and Warhol would be feted like rock stars. If today we look at the big-earners and lifestyles of artists such as Hirst, Emin, and Koons it is clear they are as far removed from the garret as are the Rolling Stones from the roots of the blues.

This undeniable shift in artistic identity from hero-outsider to celebrity returns the contemporary artist - commercially aware, confident, reliant upon assistants - closer to the Renaissance model in all but one important regard: craft. To own and nurture a skill is fundamentally different to contracting out elements of production. Of course painters and sculptors often employed studio assistants, but their authorship and superiority over them was never in question, and in nearly all cases such engagements were controlled through drawing. Perhaps to many advocates of the post-modern and contemporary all this may seem old-fashioned and irrelevant. Well I do not consider it so, nor do I feel it is in anyway divisive to highlight such distinctions. Other than declaring a personal preference for art that is informed by the discipline of drawing I am not making judgements about art based upon choice of medium. My fascination here rests with how different types of artistic character get promoted. Tortured loner or smooth operator - one must of course always be deeply mistrustful of any stereotype. The dangers are far from latent, and I would go so far as to say the idea of artist as hero-outsider has seriously trivialised the public perception of artistic status in modern society. For example consider how 'Starry, starry night' by Don McClean influenced the public imagination. Similarly artists who pop up in today's media clearly revelling in their celebrity status (think Koons, Hirst, and Emin) can easily be thought of as the inevitable, yet shallow, opposition. In my experience the truth is far more complex than either caricature suggests. Whichever archetype dominates is to a large extent shaped by the current social milieu, and that the artist, along with the soldier and the holy person, is in reality perennially elusive and mercurial in character.

Earlier this year I visited St Ives to see my old friend and mentor, the painter John Emanuel. One evening I told him about a friend of mine who was about to give up the day-job to paint full-time and had expressed some mixed feelings about having to consider 'painting more commercially'. His response was instructive: "Tell him not to worry about that," he said. "Do you think artists as diverse as Freud, Hirst or Emin aren't commercial? First and foremost there's only good and bad art." And there, in a few sentences, he had laid bare the relative priorities.

At this point we can return to Giacometti's seemingly generous offer. Other accounts of his character make it clear he was no fool, and if we consider his values and motivations it is not too hard to understand the trade, not in coldly financial terms, but as he saw it, as a metaphysical exchange that would confirm his legacy.

How we love anecdotes about artists that embellish our preconceptions, but it is appreciation of their work that really matters.  'L'Homme Qui Marche I', was produced in humble surroundings yet ending up becoming the most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction. We also have Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull, where meaning and market value have become inextricably linked. Both are undeniably art objects, however the former proceeds from the value ascribed to a particular sensibility, centred upon artistic skill; in contrast the latter is a sparkly, yet brazenly self-referential, comment upon the art market that made its production possible. Time spent working out our own position to such value judgements is time well spent, as by doing so we will shape the values of our times. I will leave it to Dylan Thomas to suggest where my own allegiances lie:

IN MY CRAFT OR SULLEN ART

Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.