But the soul needs to be fed thus we have a Billie Holiday, Lester Young, B.B King, Luciano Pavoratti. The highest art strives to bring us to the highest levels of consciousness and many times the artist isn't aware of this because he or she may be hungry, or trying to survive in a world where their art form isn't celebrated and their abilities not equally rewarded. A true artist performs because they have to. They don't have a choice. They are driven by an imperative to make their art.
Art is something that can be attempted but never contrived.
The image of the starving artist is a cliche to some degree but many have paid those kind of dues. Conversely, many true artists have become rich and famous because their art was able to reach and be demanded by large numbers of people. All great artists have in common the fact that they held a strong and tenacious viewpoint of who they are and what it is they are doing and who they are doing it for. Their art was tied directly to their perceptions. Webster does offer a fairly concise definition of the word perceptive.