"I am not sure what you mean, the history of art is a history of rich/powerful people giving poor/lower ranking people money for doing said art. Artists have never been truly free in that sense — thst was my point."
To me the history of art is quite a bit broader than european elites wanting to protect their investments and tax evasion schemes, basically 'haussing' the value of what their predecessors commissioned from painters.
Among other things, there's what might be called 'folk art'. Songs and music that narrate more or less mythical history, a practice predating european urban elites with their mecenate style of commissioned paintings. 'Street art'. Drawing a dick on a random brick wall is a very old tradition.
Personally I'm not sure I believe in commercial art. That would be an expression and possibly an exploitation of economic relations, and not an expression or invention of humanity. In part my suspicion against the idea that relative wealth and convenience would be good for art stems from this, it implies a disconnect from most of contemporary and historic human life.
