Art for Art's Sake!

Ever wondered about the artist?
Yeah, that bearded guy in kurta-pyjama who lives in a perenially leaking pigeon-hole at the top-floor of a crowded low income apartment, who can barely make ends meet but still remains an idealist and is happy as long as he has his paintings with him.I met a friend's friend recently who happens to be one of this kind and two things struck me during the experience. One, how his financial status seemed not to fit with his IQ level, and two, how less affected he seemed to be by that fact.

The majority of artists, be it painters, dancers, writers, sculptors, even photographers, live a hard life financially. Now this seems so unfair, given that they do something they really like and you would expect them to be rewarded for that. But thinking deeper, I realise that that's the best way for things to be. The sole reason for a person to choose art as a profession is because he wants to. There are no two ways about that. His reward for what he does is in the process itself. Money is only secondary. Sure, he would like to have his daily bread and butter, but that's not the reason why he's an artist. So lack of monetary reward isn't a deterrant for the true artist. On the other hand, the absence of the green dough keeps a lot of the "pretenders" out of the game. So what we get as art out of the system tends to be 'the real stuff' at best and 'sincere' at worst. There are no phonies around to bring the standard down.

Case in point are the Indian film industry and the Western popular music industry. Two areas of great artistic potential, but also, unfortunately, two areas rolling in cash. As a result, we see actors who can't act, singers who can't sing, acceptable standards of performance going down to such drastic levels that it's easy to forget that these are actually art forms, and we have even more people queuing up to join in, all in search of that magical nirvana-money.
Contrast this with the Bharathnatyam scene in the city. When I was in school, almost half the girls in my class went for some classical dance tution or the other, and they enjoyed it too. But today, they are all either IT professionals or married. Not a single Bharatnatyam exponent. The explanation is quite simple-no future, no money in Bharatnatyam, you see. The inference is thus, quite predictable. The people who do end up as Bharatnatyam experts are those with the passion for it, and it's usually such people who do a good job of it too.
So long may the tribe of artists prosper, the world will be unimaginable without them, but also, may they prosper in poverty!

To take the argument further, wouldn't it be great if the same logic could be applied to other spheres of employment too? Consider a CEO who is paid peanuts for his efforts but still doesn't mind. Why? Because he has a true passion for his job. If all the posts in an organization were filled this way, it would not only result in a tremendous increase in efficiency, but also seriously undermine the value of money!
This concept of 'take the money away, and only the passionate will remain' could actually revolutionise the world, but for one big obstacle - the vast, vast majority of people who don't have a passion in the first place, who don't have a goal they'd die for, who are happy existing and not living. For them, it's money that carries them forward and not some stupid, half-baked, hot-blooded emotion. Hence, status quo. And hence, I will be happy to see just art working on this system, giving us new insights and experiences which truly come from the heart.