Vladimir, let me tell you something about artists...

You've probably heard Putin's belated semi-confession that Russians may have been involved in  hacking our election:

Hackers, he said, “are like artists” who choose their targets depending how they feel “when they wake up in the morning.” Any such attacks, he added, could not alter the result of elections in Europe, America or elsewhere.

Artists, he said, paint if they wake up feeling in good spirits while hackers respond if “they wake up and read that something is going on in interstate relations” that prompts them to take action. “If they are patriotically minded, they start making their contributions — which are right, from their point of view — to the fight against those who say bad things about Russia,” Mr. Putin added, apparently referring to Hillary Clinton.

Wrong metaphor, Vladimir Satanovich.

I used to paint pictures for a living, and let me tell you: I did what I did (usually at the last possible moment) to pay the light bill, not because I woke up in a good mood.

Most artists are illustrators, even the ones considered "fine" artists. The vault of the Sistine Chapel was an assignment; Michelangelo wanted nothing to do with that ceiling, but the Pope had given an order, so whatcha gonna do? The Mona Lisa was a commission. As much as I love Leonardo's portrait of Ginevra Benci, I'm quite sure that the artist wanted to paint it even less than that surly teenaged girl wanted to sit for it. Caravaggio enjoyed drinking, fighting and whoring more than he liked to paint.

Even the artists who don't have patrons or take commissions tend to glom onto subjects or techniques that sell. The marketplace can be the cruelest boss of all. Art for art's sake is rarer than most people think, especially when the artist works on a grand scale.

The manipulation of an American election was an "artwork" on the grandest scale imaginable. And we all know who ordered it up.