The 'Artistic' Temperament-

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 May 06 - 04:29 PM

Well, for what it is worth, my experience with artists is that, as I said, some of them are "exceptionally normal" -- they work far harder than everyone else, they lead fulfilling lives, and their special talent is to drive the standard stuff further than other people. The "exceptionally abnormal" people are people who are somehow able to keep stable when other abnormal people go mad or go into useless depression or whatever. They can hold together long enough to get it down. That is why some of them are kind of "bipolar" -- their editorial voice kicks in from time to time to keep the other voices from overwhelming them. How this works is mysterious: a classic example is Vincent Van Gogh. You can read his letters and marvel at his ability to bicycle along the edge of the abyss for so long.

Van Gogh is an interesting example because he also shows something that abnormal geniuses often have, which is somebody stable around them. Vincent had Theo; James Joyce had his wife Nora; and so on. There is almost always somebody to do the stability work if the artist can't do it himself or herself.

The really stunning thing is how the real artist appears. Who could predict a Picasso? Or a Keats? Or Lennon-McCartney. You just sit there with your mouth open: how do you go from "Love Me Do" to "A Day in the Life" in 4 years?

yours,

Peter T.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: John Hardly
Date: 01 May 06 - 04:06 PM

It'd be a good question if you didn't include Elvis in the list of Townes, Hank, Parsons, etc.

It's like asking about the lives of chefs like Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck.....oh, and Ronald McDonald.

:^)

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 May 06 - 03:56 PM

Maybe the assumption that "creative" people are more likely to be troubled in their life, or that troubled people are more likely to be creative, is actually correct. Or maybe it's not, and it's just that while we hear the complaints of tragic poets, the tragic plumbers suffer in relative silence.

Has anyone come across any evidence one way or the other?

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 May 06 - 01:42 PM

That's what I was wondering, Peter T. Is there a shade, a wall, a barrier, over which the artist must peer in order to communicate with 'lesser' folk? Does the artist always feel 'different' from other people?

Bobert, thanks for a scholarly view of what is inside the artist. So tell me, did you too always feel different? If not, when did you change?

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 May 06 - 01:28 PM

I think that "mad" artists work in spite of, not because of, their illnesses--this is because all art requires great discipline--and if you develop that discipline, you can use to to deal with illness in the same way you use it to deal with your art form.

Or maybe its the other way around, you develop the discipline to manage your illness, and you can use it for the art, as well.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 May 06 - 12:35 PM

I bow to your insights, its only what a friend (who was an expert on Romantic poetry) opined - namely that his best work was done by the time he was 23. But as I said it was no more than an opinion.

My main point was that some artists just don't live long enough, or maybe their creative powers don't sustain long enough - to reach that point of maturity and synthesis that a longer career makes possible.

Even in the world of folk music - surely you know people who one feels had something promising to contribute - but had their careers stalled, blocked , and destroyed by an unsympathetic folk establishment - and thought bugger this for a game of soldiers and opted for the steady job and the mortgage.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:00 AM

Au contraire, Keats was only just getting rolling when he died. You look at his late work, such as the "Fall of Hyperion" and you can see him shifting into a new voice, more powerful (if such is possible). He was sick unto death in his last year. We are blessed to have the Odes, but to argue that he was finished is completely wrong.

Now Wordsworth is a different kettle of fish.


yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 May 06 - 05:22 AM

I respect what you are saying.

But there are different kinds of artists - like there are different kinds of farmers, and bankers.


Keats was pretty much finished by the time he was 23, and lived only a few more years - so he didn't have the luxury of waiting til he was in his 30's to gain some perspective - and the same could be said of Jimi Hendrix of course.

People like this have to work blindly with their perceptions, but without adult and middle aged maturity. And I'm not sure if artists look harder for things, or just select different things on which to concentrate. Henry Moore the sculptor used to say this thing, that picking the pebble from the beach was an artistic act - the act of selection, you pick that specific pebble.

Some artists like Alfred Wallis the Cornish fisherman painter don't begin their artistic careers til very late in life - after a lifetime spent relatively normally.

I once asked my college lecturer why John Clare ended up in the madhouse, whereas Blake (who seemed so much more mad) was allowed to live relatively quietly. And he said something very wise, namely that Blake could take care of his private business affairs whereas Clare's life was a mess.

Townes Van Zandt's great song Poncho and Lefty, when you come down to it, is about the fact that we need to show compassion not just for the fated outlaws (artists/humans) that die young, but all those fated to committ acts of betrayal in order to go on living.

maybe he was thinking of his own inevitable encounter with death when he wrote:-

All the Federales say
We could have had him any day
Only let him get away
Out of kindness I suppose

Find me a traditional (hey oop, ee by gum, it was the 20th of February)folksong with that depth of feeling, that much insight into the modern predicament. I don't think so.

all the best

big al whittle

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 09:03 PM

Well, well, well...

Ummmmmmmm? This is a difficult question, Eb... And fir folks who may not have the artist's soul what I amj going to say will make little or no sense and some might actually attack me for what I'm about to write but...

I am an artist an' other artists here in Mudville will knew what I mean when I say that being as artist is both a blessing and a curse...

Artists have a different way of processing information... Artists know instinctually what Carlos Castanada was talking about when Don Juan tells Carlos about "seeing by not seeing"... What he means is that most folks go thru life and they see what most folks see... Artists see that stuff too but artists also are always searching for stuff that the other fokls miss...

What other folks miss becomes the window for artists... Sometimes these windows are convoluted (Dali's "Clock" painting), melemcholy (Wyeth's "Girl in the Field" painting"), down right tortured (Munch's "Scream" or Picasso's "Guernica"), confuzing (anything bu Escher)...

Music, is very much the same... It's the same process... Don't do what other folks do... Don't walk where they walked... I think of Jimi Hendrix "National Anthem" as the the best example of "seein and not seeing"... He fou a way of not seeing the way the song had traditionally been played...

But there's more... Artists are kinda compuulsive because in their struggles to find order in their own lives they have to "create" order from disorder... Back to Castanada here... Artists are not all that intersted in what ordinary folks regard as the body of information... Because it is ordinary... No, they/I will mess with it because ordinary ain't what artists are... There's no order in the ordinery world for them (us)... So they/we go about tidying up the stuff that ordinary folks don't have a clue about...

I'm sure this only makes sense to those of you who are artists... Artists isn't about product... It's all about the way we look at stuff...

Duchamp probably said it best when he said that "art is shit" in desrobing the dadaist movement in that the product is just the "shit" part of the process... Like I said, this ain't about product...

Jimi Hendrix didn't do the "Star Spangled Banner" becuase he had thought it out and thought it would be a nice product... He did it becuase he had ***had*** to do it...

I think I was born an artist... In spite of startin' to paint and draw very early and then write poetry and then songs and then, and then, it really didn't sink in until I was well into my 30's but since it did, I think I have some grasp on it...

These are my thought and I reserve the right to alter them... But that's what artists do... Add... And subtract from the the obvious...

Bobert

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 08:56 PM

A friend of mine (who is a genius) says that her problem is that she was born with a skin too few. I can see that. I think some geniuses are what I would call exceptionally normal, and some are exceptionally abnormal.

I always thought Shakespeare was the best example of the exceptionally normal, until I reread Hamlet recently. I have changed my mind.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: michaelr
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 08:49 PM

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine've been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's

Many creative people have been, you might say, obsessed, or even possessed. Driven by their unique urges (demons?), most of them were ridiculed in their time (Van Gogh), and only later accorded great artist status.

It could be said that artistic creativity, like religion, is a peculiar disorder of the mind. Unlike religion, it's only destructive to the one individual.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 08:21 PM

People die early in all walks of life, and sometimes that's down to how they have treated their bodies, and sometimes it's down to how their bodies have treated them.

But if they are poets or singers or performers we are more likely to hear about that then if they were plumbers or lorry-drivers or office-workers.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 07:00 PM

If you get a chance watch the great new French film "The Chorus". The line that jumps out is what the teacher says about the talented pupil as he tries to persuade the mother to send him to a music school. She asks what will happen then and he says;
"He will be what he has to be."
That's the artistic temperament, You don't dabble, you don't play at...you "be what you have to be" and take the consequences. For some, these are too great. They think they are drivers but they end up being driven, and that's when control can be lost. The blessed are those who can make the journey and stay in control. I have friends who have succeeded in that, and I have lost others who failed.
I have to say that those I've known who get more success than most also have more problems controlling their journey. The moon is a better target than the stars.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 06:27 PM

Plenty of musicians and composers and writers live balanced and calm and happy lives - look at the Bach clan. Look at the late lamented John McGahern.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 03:24 PM

Chaim Potok (1929-2002) - original name Herman Harold Potok

His "My name is Asher Lev" is a wonderful novel about an artist torn between his religion and his art. Potok seems to have been 'well-adjusted'. So what does it add upto? Beats me.

Potok bio.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 03:09 PM

Interesting book review. It would seem that she has made a definitive observation on certain artists. However, I too would like to see studies done on less publicized - perhaps therefore less successful - geniuses that depict settled lifestyles and satisfying relationships. As sharyn says, I'm sure they are out there; they're just not as visible.

I tell you, the older I get the more support I see for the concept of reincarnation.

As Cohen wrote, Fame doesn't take away the pain, it only pays the bills.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:27 PM

It looks to be a good guess from where I sit, Amos.

Sorry. This is the link.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: sharyn
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:26 PM

The "artistic temperment" does not necessarily lead to drug or alcohol abuse, which can be a genetic, chemical problem and not the result of any particular temperment. It is important for me as an artist (painter), singer, musician and writer to know that there are (and have always been) artists who didn't destroy themselves, artists who had happy marriages, artists who had supportive families. In fact, I have found that many successful come from musical families where everyone played instruments and sang -- I knew a family that played string quartets together and the kids became a violist and a claasical soprano recital singer.

I don't think anyone would think Janis Joplin could have been happy -- or safer -- as a banker or a real estate agent. Any of them might have been helped people who both loved them and confronted their addictions, facing down the denial systems over and over.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:24 PM

I don't think you can predict the answer to this question based on the whole class of cases you mention.

In order to become -- for example -- real estate agents, Jimi and Janis and Townes, Inc., would have hadto walk out of one vocabulary and range of behavior and attitude into a very different one, a different measure of what success is.

Just assume they had tried. If they had any early successes, they would probably get into it deeper, motivated by the delights of those successes.

But it would not have laid their daemons to rest as such. I can see the three of them now, running a posh successful office in a nice suburban region somewhere, and each of them nursing a drinking habit after hours.

The reeducation would give them a shell of different behaviour, but without the outlets for the their inner screams and their hungry poetic insights, I suspect they would become morose, or possibly psychotic, and at best would become alcoholics. Just a wild-ass guess, though.

A

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:18 PM

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:otajhObG5yAJ:serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Applegate.html+artistic+temperament&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=2

It is from 'A Book Review of Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D.'

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:15 PM

Peace, that's an interesting quote in this connection. If I were bolder, I would ask you specifically for your thoughts on this. But I'm not that bold. :)

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:13 PM

"And Something's odd - within -
That person that I was -
And this One - do not feel the same -
Could it be Madness - this?"
-Emily Dickinson

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:10 PM

That's what we were conjecturing last night, Bert; that if they had not gone into the performing arts they might have died even sooner, just not as publicly or as widely mourned. We be complex critters.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Bert
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:06 PM

My guess, Ebbie, is that if they hadn't gone into the arts then they would have been worse. There's a load of folks in regular jobs that succumb to various addictions, they just don't make the news.

I worked in a very high stress job for many years and actually loved it. That was telephone customer support, which ranks extremely high on the stress level - above air traffic controllers.

Music is a release that can reduce job related stress, once you get over the initial stage fright.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:56 PM

I understand how you described the lifeways...

Yes I get your main point...

The professions listed are high conformance high stress ones. If anything would contribute to a need to escape that would do it.

I associate with a lot of professionals....ever try to get them out on the spree on a sunday neet....or any working day! Impossible. Therefore they are not properly venting and the stess gets even worse.


CB

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:47 PM

Why, #1 Peasant, I do believe you misunderstand me.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:26 PM

I don't believe that the rant, or the spree or the bohemian lifeway is at all warped or skewed or artificial.

Depriving folks of freedom is however quite warped, skewed and as artificial as it gets.

Remember that the truly tortured spirits are those tortured by bankers, real estate agents and lawyers.

For example....having to pay a 70 dollar fine for taking a leak in publik....something all creatures outside of the human jungle do freely now that is disturbing! Been there done that..... (always carry an empty milk jug)

How much talent have we missed or lost because so many people have been inhibited and do not feel free to express themselves freely? I would say we loose more this way than to the free lifeway choices you describe.

Part of the problem is also lack of faith. Remember those folks are now singing somewhere else....

CB

Subject: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:12 PM

Last night I watched the video of Townes Van Zandt's life. Perhaps only with the benefit of hindsight, his end was inevitable- died at age 52 after a lifetime of drug abuse and addiction.

It is a disturbing documentary as one watches the disintegration of a tremendously talented man.

It's not a new thought, of course, but my question is: If these tortured souls (Van Zandt, Hendrix, Joplin, Hank, Parsons, Elvis, et al) had NOT gone into the arts - perhaps gone into banking or real estate- would they have survived? Would they hav 'outgrown' their warped and skewed reality? Would they have outgrown their need for the artificial high?