People who think that art is only pure if it is devoid of commerce are so funny to me.

A guy just referenced a Michelangelo painting in the Sistine Chapel as an expression of his religious zeal, which made that artwork true, authentic art.

He got paid like $78k in today's money for that. He got paid $1M in today's money for sculpting David.

I hate to break it to folks, but professional artists have always gotten paid... and should be. You aren't less of an artist because money changed hands. In fact, that's how you keep getting to be an artist over the long term.

The venn diagram of artist who never got paid for their art in their lifetimes / who died in obscurity AND whose work actually doesn't suck is a tiny sliver of overlap at best.

If we're talking about really any time in the last 500 years or so, most artists who were commercial failures in their own lifetimes were not very good. Even someone like J.S. Bach was paid very well in his time (he constantly complained about money anyway, but.... he also had 19 kids, so..... ) even though there was a period after his death when people kinda forgot about him.