Commentary During the 1990s, the French government spent more, per capita, on culture, than any other country in the world in the hope that it would encourage an artistic and cultural flowering of epic proportions. However, the unprecedented infusion of funds did the opposite, and the results were meagre bordering on non-existent. This phenomenon was noted by French historian and essayist Marc Fumaroli, who observed that government philanthropy does not buy genius. “Where were the painters and the sculptors who were supposed to emerge from the conveyor belt of cultural engineering?” Fumaroli asked. We might well ask a similar question of our very own conveyor belt of cultural engineering, the Australia Council for the Arts. Since 2016, the Council has dished out a staggering $356 million of taxpayers’ money in grants to individuals and groups who it has judged worthy of financial support. This is not an insignificant amount of …