Is teaching a duty or an art?

For many years I've heard teachers saying that they are fulfilling their duty by entering the classroom and pass on their knowledge to a group of students who are not always interested in what's being said. There seems to be in Brazilian culture (and who knows if in other countries too?) the idea that the teacher is a sufferer who earns a very low salary to do too much.
Imagine the situation of the greatest artists of all time. What they felt  could change some point of view people have about the world. Many of them were not understood during their whole life and perhaps even after their death. This does not diminish the value of their work. Some are praised just because we can not understand them. Take the case of Mona Lisa, she is smiling or not. No one will ever know, but it is undeniable the contribution of this picture to the study of art and its history.

If art is not understood, though respected, how about the teacher's work in the classroom, it doesn't seems that it ends up being an artwork? What is the best material to shape and get fantastically unexpected results, other than a human? I do not think there's anything better. Think of the wonder of a child to see their teacher who always seemed balanced stand in the middle of the class singing a song for children, or maybe playing hopscotch or jumping rope during the break. Perhaps just imagine that this kind of attitude can teach more than all the grammatical rules and mathematical formulas. The art of teaching is the art of painting a picture, the end result is unknown even by the artist, but the observers to come, and perhaps the artist himself, will be surprised with the result. This can be very good or very bad, it depends on what the creator believes what he can do.
The task of teaching is easier to see the result, the student pass or fail in the end of the year, is mathematical. You can not miss on about the outcome. The teacher just does what he's supposed to do, he enters the classroom, he teaches, he goes home complaining (or not) about all the tests and work that he has to correct and he really hopes that the roudy students leave the school or  their parents tell them off so hard that decide to change their behavior.
It is not easy to tell what is utopian or not in the art of teaching, but it is easy to predict what may be real in the line of duty to teach. In fulfilling my duty as a teacher I can help one student or other to have good grades and go to the grade, teaching what he needs to the main tests, preparing them to other selective tests, but I am not responsible and I may not have great participation in the development of a human being.
In closing, I leave a question that I'm not sure I know the answer: As a teacher, I worry about my duty to try and create some masterpieces, even though they are few and I never know whether they will be succeeded or not?

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