Pfft! The vast majority of artists aren’t successful, period! That’s no secret.I think you vastly overstate the case of how successful artists are if they just do what they want. If nothing else, for most of recorded history, I suspect most art ever created has been in form of practical goods (clothes, pottery, etc), rather than art that has no function except as art. The form of practical art is dictated by the need of the buyer, not the artist. I make an artwork of a bowl because bowls sell, and I took it as my craft, and so on.
From there, the Warhols, Dalis, and Michelangelos of the world are small in number, a handful, in comparison to the masses who produce art, and cannot make a living at it.
Thing is, up until relatively recently, even though you might know an artist did a work for ________, unless you experienced it in person, you might not be aware of details that might make it controversial.
It could be coded iconography. It could be things that can only be perceived from a certain angle or under certain conditions (Holbein’s The Ambassadors, for instance). At least one operatic solo was composed in such a way that the juxtaposition of high and low notes made a particular soloist bob her head like a chicken.
Now, so much of that stuff is archived so that secrets simply can’t be kept for long. Skeletons will be dug up.
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