None of the above. People do what they are paid to do. People create what they learn will sell.

...were they not in charge of
written recorded history-they would
have to keep to the same story

Religious people are more likely to destroy religious art than non-religious art. Muslims are best known for this because of Islam's prohibition of depictions of God, Mohammad, humans and any other sentient creatures; in former times when countries came under Islamic rule, as was the case with Spain under the Moors, art falling foul of this ban would therefore be destroyed. It's most definitely not only Muslims, however - here in England the Puritans felt that churches should be austere, plain places and destroyed the medieval decorations once found in many churches; destroying paintings, smashing statues and white-washing the richly-coloured murals on the walls; the Calvinists did the same in the Netherlands and other Protestant sects did similar in other countries.

I've taken college art history classes & the correct answer is neither of those. In the early days pigments & such were expensive & the artists had to make their own paints. Artists generally could not afford supplies along with feeding their families, so they had patrons if they were good enough to attract them. They also were commissioned for projects. And the churches had money. Even paintings that don't appear religious to our eyes often carried religious messages in symbols recognized by the people of the time, since few could read. Patrons liked to show off their wealth by having the artist use large areas of very expensive to make colors--something people of the time would alaso recognize. I'm not sure any more, but I think one of them was a certain blue.

rich people paid for the art and they needed to keep good with the church...

fyi: they also did A LOT of war stuff too...glory and all.

Not voting because there isn't an answer that fits my theory. Life was pretty terrible for a lot of people in those times. I think that only the promise of something better afterwards kept them going a lot of the time. (False hope is better than none, I guess.) I think the idea that all would be well eventually was important -- and remember a lot of the art from those times was not being done by the average Joan or Joe. They didn't have time for art -- they needed to work to keep body and soul together. That's what I think.

Man has always admired, feared and tried to control nature with the magic of art, as far back as Lascaux and as recent as David Foster Wallace's "Roger Federer as Religious Experience".

Artists were subsidized by the Church, and/or wealthy patrons who sought favor with the Church. As always, follow the money!

None of these, artists need to be commisioned, the churches had lots of money and benefactors.

This is why in art history tricks, jokes and blasphemies are sneaked in to so many religious works of art, Da Vinci and Michelangelo were particularly notorious for doing this.