Oh no, don't confuse the brush strokes with art.
A computer program isn't an idea: It's a set of instructions to the computer to accomplish that idea. The "elegant code" is merely the brush strokes, the idea lives in your head and in the resulting program.
Some math proofs are mechanical and boring. Some are astoundingly elegant. Both get the job done. The latter gets talked about and praised.
As someone who writes that kind of source code: It's not art, it's years of discipline and careful attention to detail.
A different way to say it: A song, and its performance, are art. The sheet music, and the filing system, are not. Yet, both are important and critical tools for preserving and communicating the song. The "legibility" of sheet music comes through discipline, but isn't the art itself.
Git is the filing system, and source code is the sheet music.
There's a reason I'm writing Grace in F#, after all.
Don't confuse the act of putting paint on a canvas with the finished result. Programming is not art, it's a means to an end.
> It imposes too much structure on programming
The structure that tools like git provide is based on decades of know-how from people who use programming and source code control as a tool to accomplish a result.
You may decide that painting with oil or acrylic paints on a canvas is less artistic and more structured than using crayons or markers on paper. But there's a reason why artists gravitate towards certain tools to make certain results. The time invested in using the tools correctly is required to make the desired result.
In my case, I don't use git for one-off programs and experiments. Once I plan on working on a project for an extended period of time, it's extremely helpful.