Capitalism, unfortunately, has a negative affect on art. It makes it so art, especially classical art, is presented in a way of financial value rather than aesthetic value. People now put a price on art that they shouldn't. Instead of looking at art for the representation of emotion or the statement that it is trying to make, most people look at art simply for the visual quality and then assign a price to it. Aesthetics may then be claimed to be taken into account, when in reality it is all just a formality to assign price.
Because of this degrading affect capitalism has had on art, it makes the general populace take art less seriously. People no longer appreciate art for its aesthetic value (or, at least, a good portion of people don't). Artists are given the stereotype of people those snobbish, stuck-up men in art galleries, taking with an air of superiority and looking to have their art put into a high class museum; no one takes it seriously and they look at it with contempt, seeing artists as people just looking for money. Art as a means of expression is not taken with much seriousness, and those people that are recognized as doing such art "starving artists", meaning they are not getting by well because they are not doing art for money.
Alas, there doesn't seem to be much of a solution to this issue. People could be reinforced of art's purpose to be expression of human emotions and issues and using art to communicate these feelings among the populace, but that can only get you so far. As long as there are greedy people within the confines of capitalism, they will keep assigning price to everything and anything, art included. The best that we, as artists, can do is to try to transcend this view, keep doing what we're doing, and hope that our word gets out.
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