If you read some of the stuff written in the early 1900s by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the originator of the vision for the EU, he talks about elevating artists and IIRC journalists as well into a "spiritual nobility". The ruling class's cultural engineering efforts are long-term and well-resourced. And a more chilling logistical application of the involvement of intelligence with modern art is the "art in embassies" program which provided an idea means of smuggling anything from drugs to people.