Here’s a quote I came across in Janson’s The History of Art,
and which I like exceedingly well: “To subject the artist to the impersonal
pressure of supply and demand in an egalitarian society is not necessarily
worse than to make him depend on the favor of princes. The lesser men will tend
to become specialists, steadily producing their marketable pictures, while
artists of independent spirit, perhaps braving public indifference and economic
hardship, will paint as they please and rely for support on the discerning
minority. . . Even the greatest masters were sometimes hard-pressed (it was not
unusual for an artist to keep an inn, or run a small business on the side). Yet
they survived – less secure, but freer.” (pp. 424-25) I salute those artists,
like myself, whose fiercely independent spirit keeps them free despite the
hardships they must endure.
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