Due to informal barriers the arts are structured and partly monopolized, but the structuring is informal and difficult to discern. Informal monopolization causes a reduction in risks for artists in privileged areas, while risks are higher for artists outside these areas.

In the selected areas, average income, in the form of recognition and usually some money as well, is higher because many are excluded and numbers are relatively small. Therefore, competition is less intense. In these areas, there is a consolidated effort to support the reputations of artists.
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There is extensive available literature regarding the gift. By formulating and then answering some questions about gift-giving in the arts, I try to apply some of this literature’s findings to the arts. I begin with some preliminary questions.

Who are the main beneficiaries of gifts to the arts? It seems apparent that art consumers and art producers both profit from these gifts. When an orchestra survives because of certain donations or subsidies, it’s considered a gift to those who can now continue to enjoy the concerts as well as to the musicians who can hold on to their jobs. But by calling it ‘gifts to the arts’ I also suggest that art itself can be a beneficiary. Thanks to particular gifts art can continue to flourish. As noted earlier, art itself cannot actually receive gifts; only people can. But in line with the way people think and speak metaphorically, these donations can also be considered gifts to art.
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Given the large supply of artworks and artists and their correspondingly low incomes, one would expect a strong tendency in the arts to reduce membership rolls via formal controls. Or, if that’s impossible, one would expect various organized attempts to certify artists and art products to better inform consumers. This is, however, not the case. The formal barriers and signals, found in other professions, are either absent or relatively unimportant in the arts.

Unlike in other professions in the arts, the separation between professionals and amateurs does not necessarily have anything to do with formal education. Although most artists have had some formal training, many don’t have diplomas and, more importantly, they do not need a diploma to work as artists.
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poverty is built into the arts and that any extra money for the arts has little effect on income and only leads to increased numbers of artists refers to the long term and to the sum of all subsidies, donations, and spending. It does not necessarily apply to any specific subsidy or donation.

Although it probably applies most strongly to the Dutch subsidy plans discussed in the previous section, it may not apply or hardly apply to certain other subsidies. In order to examine the different short-term effects of changes in specific subsidies and donations on the number of artists, it is useful to distinguish between the direct effects and the indirect signaling effects of subsidization and donation.
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There are a number of stories in circulation about famous artists who died extremely poor. People tend to remember these stories, because they fit the present mythology of the arts. Nevertheless, the biographies of famous artists from the past are stories of wealth far more frequently than stories of poverty. Such stories do not need to be representative, but they offer relevant information as long as they are not used as exemplary proof, but instead serve as pieces of a puzzle.

Sometimes information on art prices and the lifestyles of artists from the past offer insight into the incomes of not only famous artists but also of average artists. In the seventeenth century for instance, along with the fluctuations in general economic welfare, the number of Dutch painters fluctuated as well, but incomes were not lower than in comparable professions.
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