Let’s not forget the very impressive population explosion in the past century. Every ‘job’ is a skill that has been out streamed so the needs of the population are satisfied by skills of the population so resources are distributed evenly.
Art is no longer a need and there are way too many artists simply proportional to the population.
Further, a lot of ‘art’ taught is technique. It’s not creativity. Can creativity be taught? I don’t think so.
Culture played a part in preserving artists and honoring their skills. But as ‘culture’ becomes global, mainstream is adopted more as it’s more accessible. And mainstream is subject to the vagaries of market as well as vulnerable to market manipulation.
Contrary to population notions, our world is very homogenous. Somehow the promotion of diversity has ended up with the tyranny of conformity. How did this happen? This is the biggest puzzle of this past few decades.