There was a time in history where you COULD create real art and make a decent living out of it. Now, AI has set up the ultimate PRISONER'S DILEMMA (game theory) situation where everyone needs to jump on the frenetic race ot the bottom to get their work recognized.
Honest question, is that actually true? Historically, professional art always struck me as the domain of the rich, the starving artist, or the person taking commissions for the rich.
But still, it was commodity "art". The restauranteur wanted you to play the classics, not your creative original "nonsense".
AND, if you read about the history of photography, some people were definitely able to make money out of taking people's portraits. That was still the case until advanced technology came around.
But I do agree with your point: not everyone was able to do so.
People still make money from taking people’s portraits… and those people took money from the portrait artists who used to travel and paint portraits.
Artists almost always reject technology that makes what they do a commodity, which makes sense, but the reality is that art that lasts is usually something which comes into existence when the previous art gets commoditized. IMO, when the artists freak out it is because we have made a new technology that is actually disruptive.
Rich person for whatever reason, thinking it worthwhile to pay for artists' expenses. Or house them, buy their works etc. So that artist could create art.
Modern day equivalent would be Patreon. But back then, usually 1, maybe a few sponsors. Or 1 rich dude sponsoring a small ensemble of artists. Just for... dunno. 'Social credit' / personal glory? Art lover? Bragging rights? Some kind of platonic or romantic relation between artist & sponsor? To leave something behind?
I have a friend that is a workaday oil painter. He went to college for oil painting, got good at painting seaside vistas, and sells them steadily. There are also all manor of other commercial artists. Concept artists, illustrators, graphic designers, animators, composers, musical instrumentalists... they are artists who make a living from being artists. They get artistic satisfaction from their work just like a developer gets creative satisfaction from writing code for a living. They put their heart and soul into the things they create even if it might end up making them, or even other people profit. Art doesn't have to be some magical personal journey completely divorced from the prospect of money to be art. I'll bet that nearly every single musical artist you like made the majority of their work to sell it and make money. That does not make that work worse or less artistic. If you removed the things in our lives we get artistic enrichment from that were created to sell, it would be a pretty stark landscape.
I see a lot of people who generally haven't done artistic things meaningfully grappling with the "what is art" question for the first time, and making a bunch of sweeping declarations that make them feel better about riding this wave. If you're someone who has put a bunch of years, educational dollars, and effort into becoming an artists, some group of software developers "explaining" to you what "real art" is can be pretty infuriating. I was a developer for a decade-- I know this hubris from both sides. It helps when you're plowing into a new problem space to make it better with code, but when you start using those generalizations to deem someone and their life work as worthy or not, it's obnoxious, counterproductive, and generally completely inaccurate.
Source? The “starving artist” trope has existed a lot longer than the tech conglomerates.
It is a bold strategy to suggest that Nick Cave is confused by ideas of income and art. I don't care who you are: on this topic, Cave is almost 100% certainly better informed than you (or me).
People who are less excited or connected to the coal face of technology are not necessarily ignorant or engaging in motivated reasoning if they question an innovation.
The number is probably higher for the elite, most renowned artists, and it might well benefit society to ensure a portion of the best can live of it, but in many places that is already hard enough that a substantial portion of the ability of even elite artists to live off their art often comes down to government funding and grants, followed by patronage that is more about status than ability to commercially exploit a work.
That's not to agree with the notion that real artists can't want money too, because I don't agree with that, but I also don't agree that most artists have made art for gain.
At least not as a primary motivator, as if gain was the main goal, it's usually a bad one (e.g. the average full time UK novelist earns below minimum wage from their writing)
There will have been very few serious artists in history who could afford to do it for the love, because art materials cost money, and time making non-functional art is time not earning enough or working enough to live.
Art as a pastime is a very modern invention, surely. That is
But even before that I'm not convinced that about your claim. I'll concede that most artists whose works have survived for a period will have done so for patronage, because others will have faced severe limits on production. E.g. Haydn being able to be a court musician for the Esterhazy's ensured his work was played in front of an audience and associated with status, and so secured it distribution that someone composing and playing in less privileged positions did not enjoy (and indeed that Haydn himself did not enjoy at the start of his attempts to make a living as a musician after he could no longer sing in a choir).
For large parts of time we can expect most art to have gotten lost because it was not written down and recorded, or because it was produced or kept in ways that hampered its longevity.
E.g. already under the Chinese Tang dynasty we know that art was seen as an acceptable pastime and that while patronage happened, it was not a particularly desirable job, to the point that one of the earliest known Chinese painter was by a man - Yan Liben - who apparently became ashamed when he was referred to as "the imperial painter" and warned his son not learn to paint to avoid his fate of being known for it, because it was lower status than his actual paying job in the imperial administration, and his painting was something he at one point was ridiculed for.
People draw or make music or create stories whether or not we get paid for it, and even in situations where it's seen in a negative light, and we've done so for tens of thousands of years.
Fair. But the argument I am responding to implies that making money is antithetical to making art — that artists can’t think about making money if they want to make true art. This is, frankly, patronising bullshit in the fullest sense (not least because it denigrates artisanship in the sense of making truly artistic useful objects).
Arguing for a world where artists should not be respected if they are as focused on their income as anyone else is insulting, not least when great art makes such huge sums and generates independent wealth for its owners once it becomes an asset.
It belittles art itself, as a plaything or an alternative to real work.