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> Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history? It was probably true for top fine artists,
by taway_1212 10y ago
> Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history?
It was probably true for top fine artists, but at a price of working on commission (i.e. clients dictating the content). For writers, philosophers and composers, I think it was much tougher. For example Chopin, even when he was a celebrity, was living largely off piano lessons. Rousseau made a living copying piano sheets.
- paganel 10y ago> Rousseau made a living copying piano sheets. As far as I remember Jean-Jacques wanted to make a living by being a musician and "copying piano sheets" and didn't want to depend on how well his books were selling. The reason being that had he started living off his books he would have felt compelled to write what his readers wanted to read, not what he really thought. At least that's what I remember from reading his Confessions.
- taway_1212 10y agoIt was the same with Czeslaw Miłosz (poet Nobel laureate) - he wrote that, if he tried to live off his writing, he'd had to resort to writing commercial novels, which for him was dreadful. He chose to be a Slavic literature professor at Berkeley instead, and wrote poetry in spare time.