In the history of practicing arts, different ways or procedures for productions occurred according to the socio-cultural need and position of art itself from time to time. Guilds were the only professional systems available to create different art forms in classical periods of India and in late Gothic or early Renaissance periods of western world. Actually Guilds have a characteristic of universality as a balanced and systematic organization in professional means. Thus organized group productions of arts are still practiced basically in traditional folk levels or in some modern contract based offers. An individual Guild was all about teamwork, containing different skillful artists specialized in different units or fields of art practices but ultimately was used in a general sense. The principal qualities and knowledge of these artists were associated with higher craftsmanship, tools and material uses, that are, rather technical as functions. The character of decorativeness played a major role in the works of these artists. These Guilds used to function on the basis of contracts produced by higher socio-political sponsors mainly for sculptural and architectural carvings and constructions. The sculptural forms done by the Guilds, both subjectively and objectively, were largely focused and biased by the religious exposures and beliefs of the sponsors, regimes and periods. They were rather professionally specialized in producing religious art forms. The Hindu mythological and Buddhist sculptural high relief forms in various cave temples of western and southern Indian parts of Classical periods were the real, authentic and vital examples of the rigorous works of aestheticism and artistic qualities of the Indian Guilds of that time. It was found that each individual Guild had its some own specific stylistic characters of craft languages; such as in preferring of religious subjects, figurative formats, compositions and arrangements; which differ from the others. Each group had their own stylistic achievements. Thus for several times; certain Guilds, mastered in certain sculptural or pictorial styles, were used to be hired into different places. It was like groups of working artists in a mobile art company or community.

The whole infrastructure of a Guild was divided into several small self-sufficient components or artist’s units. But certainly these partial components were never seen getting any singular importance of individual identity. There were artists that are, mainly sculptors and under them were numerous masons and technicians in a Guild who were just treated as paid workers or skillful craftsmen all in a general. In fact there were different artists, each specialized and restricted in executing particular and separate kinds of sculptural or pictorial designs, patterns or figurative compositions to be used in the final arrangements. Even then these different specific designs and patterns were replicated into multiple prototypes. Thus in a way the individuality of the creation was lost but in totality the procedure of and the visual result or outcome becomes extremely unified, organized and professional. But above all, the whole Guild system was controlled and leaded by one experienced and most skilled artist (known as “sthapati” in India) who might be considered as the principal engineer of the whole project. This leader artist was the mastermind who had the responsibility of planning the blue prints and guiding his fellow working artists systematically. The final image of a Guild contains several limited skills per unit of the procedure of series or sequences of simple actions of craftsmanship; guided, planned and directed by the leader or “sthapati”. Besides this system of skilled bounded working artists; there were few individual specialized artists who worked as freelancers in different groups in different times. Also within a Guild any one assistant artist could learn a lot from the master artist and gradually becomes the next leader in a cyclic way.

In European worlds Guild system for art was quite powerful and reached at its height during late Gothic and early Renaissance periods. In Europe Guilds became a kind of unit of social life. They were so much effective that collectively they were working; like a tread union body that even participated and had stands in different socio-cultural elections and events. Unlike Indian tradition, Guilds in Europe were not just hired professional groups but had their own decisive statements, judgments and choices. The Guild union had the responsibilities to take care of favors of the systems through controlling and rationalizing the contracts and distributing of other functional materials. This union had a strong regulation system in measuring the qualities of the crafts and products. Also the craftsmen in the Guilds had to go through prolonged and rough training under the master artisans before working as a professional. The Guilds also used to undertake some socio-religious duties in the cases of working for the churches. This kind of powerful administrative association made the practices of the Guild organizations more standardized.