Festival fallout
As anti-Baillie Gifford protest results in book festivals losing sponsorship, patronage for the arts has a long history of being an ethical minefield, says Piers Blofeld
The current controversy over investment management company Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship of a range of literary festivals is a reminder that the relationship between art and patronage has always been an uneasy one. There would be no Taj Mahal or Sistine Chapel if the artists of the past had not been prepared to swallow some of their qualms about working for despotic rulers. Julius II, who commissioned the Sistine Chapel took his name from the decidedly ungodly (and pagan) Julius Caesar and was known as the Fearsome Pope.