No, we wouldn't all be better painting pictures, any more than we'd all be better raising beans (while nobody built any houses or did anything else that was necessary). But that hardly means pictures are useless.
Pictures are luxuries. While they may not be strictly necessary for survival, it is the availability of luxuries which encourages those who would be able to generate more wealth than necessary for their own subsistence, to do so. If no goods were produced other than those strictly necessary for material survival, there would be a limit to the amount of wealth anyone could find it worthwhile to produce. If increasing one's labors would entitle one to more beans than one could possibly eat, but there weren't any luxuries for which one could trade the excess, would there be any incentive to maximize one's productive output?
Yes there has to be consumption as well as production.
But we need more wealth production than consumption if we are to move forward.. Right now as a society we are spending all the wealth produced by the prior generation. This has been done through out history.