Artists have long sought the aid of patrons to fund their work. For example, the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven had several benefactors, including Vienna's Prince Carl Lichnowsky. In modern America, artists and museums frequently receive funding from the government. This patronage can come with strings attached, however, because art that is considered offensive may risk losing its funding. Such an incident occurred in fall 1999, when New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani cut the city's funding of the Brooklyn Museum of Art by one-third of the museum's $24 million annual budget. Giuliani's action was prompted by his disapproval of the exhibit "Sensation"—particularly a painting by Chris Ofili called "Holy Virgin Mary," which consists of a black Virgin Mary decorated with pieces of elephant dung and sexually-explicit pictures. The museum sued the mayor, and a federal judge found in...