Comment by estearum
14 days ago
Surely people created a lot more art, but you're eliding the dynamic of professionalism. Art is ludicrously labor-intensive and so the vast majority of professional art (i.e. most art worth saving) would have been done for rich people.
I am indeed eliding the dynamic of professionalism. I don't think it has to be "ludicrously" labour intensive and I think "professional art" is overvalued and an absolute minority of all art ever created.
It just so happens that a lot of the modern/contemporary art talked about is mostly the domain of professional art (and examples that say otherwise are often not even thought of as such like hippy tie dye clothing.)