What can art give the rich? Actually nothing more than it gives us all.
Some people becoming wealthy turn to patronage of the arts because they have the money to pay for the art works and places to exhibit them. But the energy of the creative force in the artist, the place where men get closest to what it means to be a woman and a human-being touches the ‘mind of nature’, this exists for everyone.
Historically the places where that energy is greatest, the flowering in city states in ancient Greece – political systems which were broadly the base for the city states of Renaissance Italy, the palaces of Rajahs, are places of money but the monied like Pericles or the Medici do not have to buy art, they are driven to it. Because the acts of creation resonate within them, speak in a language they cannot fully translate but nonetheless recognise, and reverberate with the populace.
And of course the art works usually outlive the rich. A gift to the Ages and a remembrance of wealthy names which the artist also understands and uses. In the digital eons ahead artworks will vanish, eroded by time, and their images will be left in 3D for everyone to enjoy. Even to be shared by other intelligences across the cosmos. Intelligences we hope, who will laugh at our pretensions but enjoy our creativity.