[timwaagh]

In the sense of the article artists have always done their best to cater to the taste of the people who might pay them. At least from the 16th century. They were typically paid for and protected by a mecenas (wealthy Merchant or nobility). There are no doubt exceptions but in general the art was to please their mecenas.

[keiferski]

Right but (and I could be wrong here) it seems like lamenting this is largely a recent thing. Renaissance artists were focused on creating the best possible work, not lamenting that they had to make paintings for money and not for their own desires.

[dommrr]

You are making quite the assumption there. There are quite a few among us focusing on creating the best possible work. And there are quite a few back then who did the opposite. Wouldn't you wonder where the conception that things were different came from?

[ubertaco]

I mean, this is part of the story of Caravaggio, right? So much of the standards for art (if you wanted any patronage) at the time were around "what is the church willing to pay for", and Caravaggio alternated between painting stuff that would get him money from the church, and painting stuff that the church wouldn't condone (because of the unapproved ways he used particular symbols, or because they were just secular subject matter).

Well, that and his tendency to murder folks, of course. But that part's less relevant to the "how old is art-for-money-vs-art-for-art" discussion.