I find it weird that they're considered separate talents. Programming is a creative task for me, and one reason I never took it up as a full time job is that I learned I hate trying to do creative work on demand. (I've been paid for both fiction writing and dev work and they produce very similar feelings in me.)
Programming is definitely easier to make a living from. I'm a very mediocre artist and developer and I'm never making enough off of art to live on, but I could get a programming job at a boring company and it would pay a living wage. In that sense, it's definitely 'easier'.