role of the artist in Bartleby

I'm exploring how Melville sees the role of the artist/author and what type of artist he sees as successful. When he wrote Bartleby he had just been forced to accept much harsh criticism about he shift from writing merely what was asked of him to writing great and complicated works like Moby Dick and Pierre. He had receded into himself and defiantly continued writing. Many critics see Bartleby as an autobiographical piece about the trials and sacrifices of being an author. I am interested in looking at how Melville critiques the artist who focuses completely on the hardships of life and of writing and fails to see beyond it to the important questions found in human connections and love. I am looking at the character of Bartleby as a writer who allows himself to be trapped by hardship and forgets how to connect to others. I am also thinking about how Melville would have responded to Edward Hopper's impression of people as lonely and trapped. Would he have said Hopper failed because he could not see the reality of human connection, because he saw only his own solitude? Or would he have praised hopper as a realist?