Actually artists did make a living from art, they were just a few and under the protection of those with big wealth. Now everybody and their mother wants to be an artist, and for what is worth, many more can do it - it's just the definition of "artist" kinda switched from "lives from art" to "creates art" because we can finally have that time and resources to do it. And then some compare themselves to the old artists and thinks why shouldn't we live from art too - forgetting the amount of networking and ass-kissing a medieval artist had to do to earn a living at the court. So what is really new is the concept "doing art for art's sake but expecting to get paid".