Has art jumped the shark after WWI?

[JuliaL]

Are you saying people don't perform live anymore because you can listen to it over a speaker? You need to visit my city - people play on the streets for the hell of it. They play in halls for the performance. It's definitely not destroyed.

What I am saying is that it is much more difficult than in prior eras to make your living as a musician. Busking on street corners won't give you Robert Plant's private jet.

Again...wut? Pop is huge. I'd argue it's even bigger than ever, because people DO pay for it, in one way or another. We have more music now than we did EVER.

So it appears because of revolutionary technological innovations in communication and information technology. These are closely held by fewer persons making individually more money. As far as music making being more widespread in actuality, I expect it only appears so because the relevant records are not available for say, the late 19th century in which poetry reading, hymn singing, private recitals and concerts were wide spread community activities.

Er...I know personally a woman who was paying someone to do her painted portrait, and I see it a lot on DeviantArt.

Again, the technology gives you access to a larger percentage of the extant examples of realistic portraiture. That this shows a real greater prevalence does not necessarily follow. It may be also that there is a larger number of portrait painters simply because of our stupendously larger population while as a proportion their numbers are in steep decline.