Does our culture consider cooks and carpenters to be as high in their status as lawyers or doctors (remember I'm not asking what we think, but what value our culture generally gives to those professions)? Our culture creates a distinction that we sometimes refer to as "blue collar" work versus "white collar" work.
In the Middle Ages and even for much of the Renaissance, the artist was seen as someone who worked with his hands—they were considered skilled laborers, craftsmen, or artisans. This was something that Renaissance artists fought fiercely against. They wanted, understandably, to be considered as thinkers and innovators. And during the Renaissance the status of the artist does change dramatically, but it would take centuries for successful artists to gain the extremely high status we grant to "art stars" today (for example, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, or Damien Hirst).
