It asks that one reconsider why art sought the appearance of anonymity. It asks why symmetry breaking had such vitality. Paradoxically, modern art has depended for its color and variety on works in series . Serial killers Artists have always returned to a few preferred subjects, like Raphael to his Madonnas . Works make sense only as they jostle consistently against their own history, their creator's uneven but unshakable impulses, and a viewer's steady demands.
Originality actually demands repetition.
Then too, beginning in the late Middle Ages , personality grew more and more important to the reception of Western art. An artist's style had to reflect the erratic course of a human life. Formal qualities might therefore evolve almost like a shift in genre. One speaks of Rembrandt's Leiden period or his murkier late phase . That something began only with Monet's haystacks and footbridges.