12-18-2005, 11:49 PM
Art is almost always more than a job to the artist.
It is usually (not always, but usually) a tough way to live. Perceptive, creative people could probably find a job managing your taxes or mowing your lawns, but instead choose a risky, low-income life.
They do so out of personal desire. Sure, it was Bach's job to compose original organ music for mass, but there were thousands of people across Europe with that job. It is Bach we remember, because he went far above and beyond the call of duty. He could have been half the musician he was, or put in a fraction of the effort, and kept his job just fine. And there must have been better paying jobs than church organist available for a person of his intellect.
So, he must have had other reasons for doing what he did. For Bach, I'm sure religion played a big part. For other artists, it might be expression, ambition (or, in Joyce's case, megalomania), fame, insanity, or any one of a hundred other reasons. But it's almost always a tough life to choose, and yet some people choose it over all sorts of other, more economically beneficial, options.
So, yes. They get paid. And it's rare to find great art where that isn't the case. But the most important considerations are elsewhere.
-Jester
It is usually (not always, but usually) a tough way to live. Perceptive, creative people could probably find a job managing your taxes or mowing your lawns, but instead choose a risky, low-income life.
They do so out of personal desire. Sure, it was Bach's job to compose original organ music for mass, but there were thousands of people across Europe with that job. It is Bach we remember, because he went far above and beyond the call of duty. He could have been half the musician he was, or put in a fraction of the effort, and kept his job just fine. And there must have been better paying jobs than church organist available for a person of his intellect.
So, he must have had other reasons for doing what he did. For Bach, I'm sure religion played a big part. For other artists, it might be expression, ambition (or, in Joyce's case, megalomania), fame, insanity, or any one of a hundred other reasons. But it's almost always a tough life to choose, and yet some people choose it over all sorts of other, more economically beneficial, options.
So, yes. They get paid. And it's rare to find great art where that isn't the case. But the most important considerations are elsewhere.
-Jester