The 'Artistic' Temperament-

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Bobert
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:20 PM

Yeah, MTed, Vincent did push but if you'll recall there was a ceratin amount of competiveness between him and Paul Gaughan at his most "furious" period of painting....

Artists can certainly get into these little "pissin' contests", that's fir sure...

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Azizi
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:25 PM

Yes, Guest 01 May 06 - 10:47 PM , your post is well written. But that isn't the point is it?

I have to ask- How many people are whole?

If after creating a work of great beauty, if there isn't enough left for the artist to be considered a whole person, then hopefully there is enough left to survive -with support from another or alone- day after day one foot in front of another until more of the artist's self is re-vived or re-created perhaps in some ways less than and perhaps in some ways greater but probably different than in he or she was before.

Artists {and non-artists} need to know that they don't always need to strive for perfection. Even more than non-artists, it's imporant that they learn how to be gentle with themselves.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:33 PM

Azizi,

"Artists {and non-artists} need to know that they don't always need to strive for perfection."

I beg to differ- artists HAVE to try for perfection, but rarely ( if ever) achieve it. If one does not have that need, one is a performer of other's creations, not a creator of art. Nothing wrong with that, but not the same thing.

IMHO, of course.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Azizi
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:38 PM

IMHO, "have to create" and "always have to create" are two different things.

It seems to me that rest & recuperation should be part of the creative process. If a person does not make sure he or she has that rest, then the result can be burn out.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:41 PM

I agree, "should be".


Given a choice between writing a sonnet when the muse is upon me, and rest&recurperation, I will write every time- until I can no longer find the page.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Azizi
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:43 PM

Perhaps I should have said "have to strive for perfection" and always have to be perfect" [in one's medium of art if not in the rest of one's life]are two different things.

Actually, on second thought, I mean my previous statement and this one too.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:45 PM

One's Art is all- Life can take care of itself. At least in terms of perfection.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:48 PM

Sorry, getting tired. I did not mean to be so abrupt.


I meant that one is forced by one's muse/demons/whatever to seek for perfection in one's artistic endeavors, while life must often take a back seat to it.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Azizi
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:49 PM

But the muse is not always with a person. And if the muse leaves for a time, that does not mean that the creative person has been abandoned or has failed to be a worthy vessel for that muse.

Maybe the time is not right. Maybe the person is supposed to focus on other things, putting the partially completed work aside and returning to it refreshed.

And maybe not.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:50 PM

True.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Azizi
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:51 PM

Truce.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 02 May 06 - 12:49 AM

Azizi - Point of interest: what you have called an "introverted-extrovert" I have heard called a "false-extrovert". Either way, I think it's an accurate concept.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 May 06 - 02:10 AM

I found a fork in the road- and I'm taking it. :)

There are people in the world who for lack of drive or education or support or level of talent and skill react in what we often think of as the artistic temperament. People who are perfectionist only in their agonizing. People who have never forgiven themselves for their imperfections- and therefore cannot forgive others.

I had a brother - he died this year at the age of 72- who was like that. Most of his life he was unpleasant to be around. (I had four brothers - and three of them were great.) This one was a bully and ran roughshod over others. The best thing he ever did was not to marry or to make a long term commitment. There were times in our lives when he and I didn't speak for 10 years.

For the last 30 years or more of his life he never had a drink, mostly because when he drank he didn't know when to quit. After a couple of DWIs he stopped entirely. He smoked for 45 or more years- and developed bronchial asthma and then finally emphesema. At various times he had tried to quit smoking and chewed nicotine gum and took various kinds of stop-smoking pills. Once he said that he had to stop taking the pills in order to have a decent smoke. *g* When he finally got to the point that one drag on a cigaretted sent him into a paroxysm of coughing he quit per force.

That said, there were some things about him that were good. I remember when he was artistic - he sketched very well - I remember when he sang -in a gentle voice- and he was a good guitarist. He loved horses and dogs- the time I watched him gentle a mustang mare was an eyeopener for me. He was good with children as long as they were little and admired him unquestioningly- when they were older, he was impossible with them, abusive and harsh and they all avoided him.

So. Did this man have an "artistic temperament"?

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST,Sandy Andina
Date: 02 May 06 - 02:27 AM

Must it be an "either/or" proposition? Look at Yeats and Wallace Stevens--one made his living as a middle-management civil servant, the other as a high-echelon insurance executive; yet both devoted their energies to their art fairly late in life and ultimately achieved greatness and fame while living relatively comfortable (by "artistic" criteria) standards of living and making their way in the "mundane" world. Look at the scores of talented art, drama and music teachers who choose to make their living by passing on the torch via imparting their skills and passion to the next generation, as well as those who earn good livings as journeyman musicians. Are they any less the artists for living within conventional societal norms and not self-destructing? Must one be a tortured soul to be an artist, or is it a convenient cop-out for those artists who are troubled? And do artists have a lock on such suffering? There are perfectly sane and happy talented artists (and no, they're not hacks just because they happen to make a conventional living) and there are troubled addicted executives and members of the professions. Being bipolar or addicted or depressive is not a prerequisite for the "artistic temperament" (if indeed such a thing exists, mutually exclusive to being able to cope in societally accepted ways); neither is it something to be proud of, a special hallmark of talent nor even a badge of membership in the artistic community. It is a disability just like any other and seeking to alleviate it is no more or less desirable than a myopic person wearing corrective lenses or the motion-impaired using assistive devices such as crutches, canes or wheelchairs. What does seem to be true, though, is that since most artists' incomes are low and they don't have health insurance (at least not Stateside), self-medication with alcohol or recreational drugs--or no treatment at all--is more common. But treating it as an acceptable excuse by romanticizing it as a desirable trait rather than recognizing it as a treatable disability is a cop-out.

There are plenty of us who choose (and are lucky enough to be able to afford) to conventionally treat our mood disorders (with medications and talk therapy) and still consider ourselves artists and continue to create quality works of art.....we just don't get any press because we aren't famous and we don't self-destruct. We are no less "artistic" than those who very publicly flame out.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST,Sandy Andina
Date: 02 May 06 - 02:48 AM

And I should add that there's plenty of self-indulgent dreck out there that passes for art just because it is the product of angst. Not everything that emerges from a tortured soul is worthy of artistic consideration (and the converse is also true). And for everyone who claims that they cannot create unless they can commune with their inner torment, there are others of us who cannot create if we cannot function. I've never been able to write worth a damn (or even write at all) when mired in despair to the point of withdrawing from the world, such as when I suffered profound postpartum depression. Right now I am coming to the end of the official "shiva" week of initial mourning for my mother (alev hasholom--rest in peace, in English). But my grief is still far too acute to be able to express creatively, and it would be premature and exploitative (and a dishonor to her in my religious/cultural tradition) were I even motivated to do so at this stage. To even entertain the thought that I might eventually turn my grief into art feels like crass sacrilege right now. It took me twenty years after his death to be able to write a song about my father. Does that make me any less of an artist?

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 02 May 06 - 09:46 AM

"...these people don't save anything back for themselves at the end of the day. They slit themselves wide open from top to bottom with the most poignant blade they can find, and bleed without reservation all over their chosen medium. Sometimes what they create is divine, the result of pouring so much of themselves into a project that it's hard to tell where the artist leaves off and the art begins. They become what they create.

And when the pace becomes less frantic, away from the public eye, there is no semblance of self to retreat to - no place of solace to regroup and reassemble. All the main parts have been disassembled and reconstructed to produce something of great beauty, and what's left over is not enough to reconstitute a whole person."

That is one of the most terribly beautiful, insightful and profound posts I have ever read on the Mudcat. I don't know you GUEST, but you are one helluva thinker/writer.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 02 May 06 - 10:15 AM

Beautifully stated, GUEST, May 1, 10:47. I have copied your post to my desktop.

I would only add that many few artists feel that the works of art they bleed themselves into ever measure up to their inner visions. The artists don't perceive their creations as "divine" or "works of great beauty," and that contributes to their despair and desolation.

Furthermore, many artists feel that anything of merit they create is the result of their getting out of the way and allowing the muse, divine inspiration, or whatever you wish to call it, use them as an instrument. When they do not feel so moved, when the muse is not with them, they feel isolated, depressed and worthless.

Elmer

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 May 06 - 10:25 AM

I am not sure I agree with the sentiments GUEST eloquently expressed. I think for many artists total self-expression is their way of surviving. There is certainly a period of exhaustion after the birth process, but most of the real artists I know have a period of peace just after they are done. It is when it all starts up again that they kill themselves (one friend I know killed himself because as far as I can tell he didn't want to be in the same agony all over again, when the doubts began to gather again); or when it ought to start up again, but they can't get to where they want to go. Or they discover that they only had one baby in them (that is a really bad moment).

On the other hand, I do agree with the idea that people have only so much integrating resource to work with. If it goes into the art, there is little left over for life. On a much lower level, whenever I have a paper to write, housework goes all to hell till it is done.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 02 May 06 - 11:06 AM

Well stated, Peter T. I agree with you too. There's no one way that it works. There's often no one way it works with one person all the time.

However, I am usually very depressed after finishing a piece. It's a feeling of throwing in the towel, of admitting defeat, of knowing there's nothing more I can possibly do to make the thing any better. It's hit the point of diminishing returns and there's not a damn thing more I can do about it.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 May 06 - 11:31 AM

Sorry to hear about your mother, Sandy--And your brother, Ebbie. Your story about your brother's problems reminds me of this painful remembrance--Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Amos
Date: 02 May 06 - 11:53 AM

I think that perfection is not the path of wisdom for an artist, if by perfection we mean some technical standard of flawlessness. To me, the criteria of "completedness" of a work is whether or not it communicates as intended.

Not that artists don't have to strive through hell to get that to happen. The power to bring something into existence where it did not exist before can be gut-wrenching and shocking and exhausting.

A

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: sharyn
Date: 02 May 06 - 12:55 PM

A few more comments: all artists (because artists are humans) are tormented by self-doubt, fear, feelings of failure, etc. -- because all humans feel those things. Lots of humans self-medicate with drugs, food, alcohol, sexual excess, shopping, whatever, whatever.

I think what makes someone an artist is a dedication to their art: you become a writer by writing, a singer by singing, a painter by painting. Those that we call "artists" or "musicians" or "writers" have carved out a significant place in their lives for artistic expression. Some do it and have day-jobs; some don't. In some ways I think an "artistic temperment" is the tendency to put artistic expression above other things: I, myself, certainly put it above shopping, earning a living, recreational drugs, T.V. and all kinds of things I could pursue. Furthermore, when I am "working" aka doing art, I am happier, kinder and more entertaining to other members of the human race because I have connected with my truest self and purpose. But, as Bobert and others have cautioned, I need a lot of silence and solitude to do my work -- and I also need artistic collaborators and people who support my doing art and people who like to look at or listen to what I produce.

Would I be happier as a banker or a real estate agent? HELL NO. Would I be financially secure and have health insurance? Maybe. Or I might be so inept and unhappy that it wouldn't get me anywhere. Could I support more people and buy more stuff? Probably. I make my choices and live with them.

Sharyn

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 May 06 - 01:03 PM

Yikes. That poem, that 'psalm'... Brings up another thought- the artistic temperament may be derived from and nurtured by those around us, those who came before. Certainly Ginsberg's poem implies an emotional state around him that birthed him.

Unless - perhaps - we are all mad.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 May 06 - 01:52 PM

I think that there are as many answers to this question as there are artists--Ginsberg's mother deteriorated from being functional and productive to institutionalization--I don't know if here affliction contributed to his creativity, but it did open him to the schizophrenic visions of Carl Solomon, which he framed in Howl, and it made it possible for him to sustain a friendship with Jack Kerouac, when others had abandoned him as he deteriorated into torment--


Kerouac shows, to me anyway, that the creativity is in spite of and not because of, the madness--
If you read him chronolgically, you can see his energy and vitality slowly eaten away, until, in his finally works, he is an empty shell, trying to imitate himself in better days.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 May 06 - 01:56 PM

Unless - perhaps - we are all mad.

Actually I think that probably is the case. Most of us put up a pretty good front, and come across as what is counted as sane and well-balanced, but it seems to me that for most people it is a front.

Or to put it a different way, sanity is a much bigger tent than we have collectively agreed to pretend. Human beings are a pretty strange breed.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 May 06 - 04:15 PM

A very disturbing comment, considering that it is coming from one who has been the voice of reason here for years;-)

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: kendall
Date: 02 May 06 - 04:32 PM

Some famous person was asked "Why do you sing?" answer, "Because I have to." Can't remember the friggin' name.

I've known people who are driven to perform just as a rat is driven to gnaw. They suffer terrible pain if they don't.

In the case of Hank Williams and others, they have to perform and they have to drive themselves beyond what any normal person can take, so it's booze and drugs to keep them on their feet.
It's like long haul truckers high on "goof balls" to over ride their need for sleep.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 06 - 04:50 PM

The artist is no diferent than the non-artists. In their chosen (or in some cases non-chosen) professions they present their inner-selves to the world. The image of the tormented artist can be found behind the pin-stripe suit or the uniform of a nurse. They happen to expose them selves in their work, and they reveal to the world what the rest of us hide. Some are drunks, some of us have mental problems and some of us are reasonably balanced.

Kendal is correct ... some of them are driven to peform, as many people are driven to work whether it be an illusive strive for some illusion of perfection that they have to obtain.

sIx

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST
Date: 02 May 06 - 04:59 PM

There is an artistic temperment. Intensely creative people do focus very narrowly on their art and it's medium. They often perceive things differently than ordinary mortals which allows them to put things together in unusual ways. They can be very high energy, driven individuals. This narrow intense focus and involvement with their art often gets in the way of relationships and those around them feel neglected and misunderstood.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 May 06 - 05:12 PM

Truth is, I think that there's a word that's useful in regards to understanding the "artistic temperament" (as referred to in this discussion). The word is "sensual". It's not that artistic people are more sensual -- it's that sensual people are more drawn to the arts.

Those who can't as easily control their drive for sensory stimulation are only inclined toward the type of discipline that will afford them more stimulation in the practicing.

They don't do drugs because they are tortured artists. The do drugs because they are driven by their sensual nature. The drugs make their lives tortured.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: melodeonboy
Date: 02 May 06 - 05:23 PM

Not that I completely understand its significance, but I was told that art is supposed to challenge and question the status quo. If this is the case, does this not make life more stressful for the artist than, say, the plumber (who was mentioned before), who might well eat, drink, watch and listen to only that to which he's been "guided" by mainstream culture.

His main concern might well be how early he can get to the pub or when he'll be able to afford a plasma screen. Ideally, wouldn't the artist have far more difficult questions to answer inside his own head? And isn't this both stressful and energy-draining?

And at the risk of asking my grandmother if she knows how to suck eggs, can I direct those of you who haven't heard it to "Broken Angel" by Lucinda Williams? It's a song about Townes van Zandt.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 02 May 06 - 05:38 PM

A movie that captured one aspect of 'the artist' was based on a book by Joyce Cary: "The Horse's Mouth". I think it is my favourite movie of all time. Alec Guinness is the character, Mr Jimson, a name alluding to the weed which can be deadly. The portrayal of an artist driven by the need to create his art is a tremendous piece of acting by a tremendous actor. It does indeed touch on one facet of 'the artist'.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 06 - 05:49 PM

"it's that sensual people are more drawn to the arts."

.... true John. If these people don't become artitsts, then they are the ones who are very creative in whatever they do. And as Guest stated they perceive things differently. Creativity, just doesn't pertain to 'the arts'. Take a look around where you are sitting, literally everything you see has been 'created' by a human being.

John (again) Your Right on with this statement .."They don't do drugs because they are tortured artists. The do drugs because they are driven by their sensual nature. The drugs make their lives tortured."

sIx

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 May 06 - 05:54 PM

art is supposed to challenge and question the status quo

It'd be easy enough to come out with a whole list of artists and artistes in all types of creative arts over the centuries in respect of which it'd be more accurate to say they set out to celebrate and affirm some aspect of the status quo.

And for a whole lot more they wouldn't have seen the questioning or affirming the status quo as something of significance in their creative work.

Artists vary. So does the status quo.

And when it comes to challenging the status quo, revolutionaries have been as likely to come from the ranks of plumbers and the like as from the ranks of poets and artists.

And sometimes from both at the same time. If there's one thing that folk music represents, it's the truth that ordinary people doing ordinary jobs can create works of beauty and meaning.
And for a whole lopt more

It all depends on the artist. And it also depends on the status quo.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 May 06 - 06:08 PM

art is supposed to challenge and question the status quo

It'd be easy enough to come out with a whole list of artists and artistes in all types of creative arts over the centuries in respect of which it'd be more accurate to say they set out to celebrate and affirm some aspect of the status quo.
And for a whole lot more they wouldn't have seen the questioning or affirming the status quo as something of significance in their creative work.

Artists vary. So does the status quo.

And when it comes to challenging the status quo, revolutionaries have been as likely to come from the ranks of plumbers and the like as from the ranks of poets and artists.

And sometimes from both at the same time. If there's one thing that folk music represents, it's the truth that ordinary people doing ordinary jobs can create works of beauty and meaning.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 02 May 06 - 07:17 PM

A day late and a dollar short, re: Janis Joplin's "drug of choice:" she became addicted to speed during her first trip to SF in '63 to make it as a folk singer. Chet Helms and her friends helped her get back to Port Arthur to clean up. It was during that time that she renounced her art and tried to go straight in all senses of the word. Wore her hair in a bun, and tried to look and act "normal."

Didn't work. JJ returned to SF in '66. She started shooting smack and hitting the Southern Comfort hard during that second phase, while singing with Big Brother and the Holding Co.

Abbreviated confirmation at:

JJ's attempt to go straight

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 02 May 06 - 07:23 PM

No confirmation needed, Elmer. I wasn't aware of that. Your word's good enough for me. Sorry, I thought you'd got the drug confused.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST
Date: 02 May 06 - 07:37 PM

Lucinda Williams' song "Drunken Angel" is about Townes Van Zandt? ...learn something new every day.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 02 May 06 - 08:49 PM

Hey, no sweatsky. Rapaire created a monster when he taught me how to blickify, so I jest haaad to reference a website in the JJ post! : > )

E.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peace
Date: 03 May 06 - 10:21 AM

I think Bill D was my Dr Frankenstein. He taught me amidst wails of protest from lotsa people.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 May 06 - 10:40 AM

"The Horse's Mouth" is a brilliant book about obsessive artistry. The film isn't nearly as good -- it doesn't have the visionary spaciness of the book (though Guinness is of course great).

I have to agree that after finishing something there can be a let down, especially if you are a perfectionist. As Auden said, poems aren't finished, they are abandoned.

The interesting thing about some artists -- Matisse is a good example -- is that they decided sometime early on that the way to solve problems was to work through them. Many other artists seem to have agonies in their heads, they seem to need to get it all worked out before they hit the canvas or the page. The saner ones seem to have learned to work it out by working it out. Goethe is another example.   It certainly explains their greater output: there are so many artists who sweat to do one thing. And the others who just keep working out as they go. Neither is better, but the latter sure seem to be happier.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 03 May 06 - 12:30 PM

Interesting observation, Peter. Perhaps you are describing artists whose messy mental/emotional processes take place in their media instead of in their heads. da Vinci seems to have been particularly fearless in that regard. He was not afraid to walk away from a piece and leave it unfinished if he got interested in something else, come back to it later, or just leave it dangling, sketch-marks exposed, for posterity.

I suppose that would be difficult to undertake in an unforgiving medium, such as stone-carving, though.

E.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 06 - 01:29 PM

Lest we go totally off the rails here, not all artists are "tortured souls." In fact, it's fairly evident that the vast majority of artists (using the term "artist" in the broadest sense:   painters, sculptors, other visual artists, singers, musicians, composers, conductors, writers, poets, actors, the whole schemer) are reasonably well-adjusted people, at least as well-adjusted as most people are.

One can make up a substantial list of artists who have mental or emotional problems (without necessarily qualifying as "insane") or who managed to do themselves in in an irrational manner, such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jussi Björling, Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Vincent Van Gogh, and the rest. But if you were to break down the various categories of occupations, I'm not really sure that you would find more artists meeting this kind of end than you would find business executives succumbing to the ravages of the three-martini lunch, stock brokers dying from illnesses brought on by stress, or computer programmers eventually snorting themselves into oblivion.

It may be that some artists are tortured souls for reasons other than being in the Arts. Take Beethoven, for example. A recent documentary on PBS said that there is evidence (forensic analysis of strands of Beethoven's hair taken from a lock of his hair at the Beethoven museum) that he suffered from nerve damage from lead-poisoning, which may have had much to do with his chronic illnesses and difficult personality, and was also quite probably the ultimate cause of his deafness. Imagine a musician of Beethoven's caliber noticing that he's going deaf! That, I would say, is ample cause for him to be disturbed, and even though it interfered directly with his music, his musical bent per se was not necessarily the problem.

In contrast to the "tortured soul," I know personally many singers of folk songs, a lead guitarist in a well-known Canadian rock group, a recently retired opera singer (I went to high school with her before she hit it big), and a best-selling science fiction writer (some of these people have names you'd recognize) who are all pretty darned happy people, just tickled pink that they're able to make a good living doing what they love to do.

Sylvia Plath committed suicide. But how many poets are there who have led relatively contented lives? Ernest Hemingway drank like a fish and eventually blew his brains out. But you can easily name a long list of famous writers who did not.

My wife, Barbara, who is a writer and poet, gets pretty tweaked at the idea that you have to be nuts to be truly creative, and I agree with her. We both feel that artists with emotional problems are creative despite their emotional problems rather than because of them. Or at the very least, their emotional problems and their creativity are concurrent characteristics, rather than having a causality relationship. It may be that the stresses of trying to make it as an artist aggravate their problem, but rather than being a necessity for their artistry, it more than likely tends to interfere with it.

I really think the "disturbed artist" is one of these stereotypes that has enough actual examples to make a lot of people think that this is the rule. Consider the number of artists who show no particular signs of mental problems and whom most psychiatrists would declare perfectly normal (at least within "normal" parameters). I think we notice these people more because a) they are the exception rather than the rule, and b) they're usually relatively famous.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: melodeonboy
Date: 03 May 06 - 02:41 PM

Yes, Guest, a correction is in order.

"Drunken Angel" was not written about Townes van Zandt. It was written FOR Townes van Zandt but ABOUT Blaze Foley.

(My suspicion is that you knew this anyway but were a little too self-satisfied to correct it yourself!)

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 May 06 - 04:41 PM

I don't know about stone-carving, Michelangelo seems to have worked things out in stone as he went along. Rodin too.

I think it is hard to generalise about "artists" as a big category. But there is something about the "supreme" artists that does make me think that there is a pretty clear dichotomy between the supremely serene ones (Shakespeare, Goethe, Titian) and the supremely tormented ones (Van Gogh, Caravaggio, Dostoyevsky).   It is as if one group is like God enjoying his work, and the other is like Satan, fighting it all the way down into Hell.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: John Hardly
Date: 04 May 06 - 10:54 AM

And then there's the artist who inflicts his pain onto others -- like Thomas Kinkaide

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: GUEST
Date: 04 May 06 - 12:47 PM

no melodeonboy .. I learn something new every day ... so Drunken Angel was written for Townes about Blaze ... got it. ;-) ... best to you.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: hesperis
Date: 04 May 06 - 12:49 PM

I have to agree with the "introvert-extravert" personality as being real. I've taken the Myers-Briggs test quite a few times through employment agencies and it's different every time but always REALLY close to the other result.

I really do need to be social sometimes and totally not social at others. Sometimes socialness recharges me and then after that I have to be completely alone to recharge. Sometimes I recharge in the middle of a social situation and suddenly turn off and withdraw internally even though I was really enjoying hanging with my friends. And if I don't do enough of either, I suffer and my art suffers.

But isn't everyone like that to some degree? Even introverts have friends... I do know more extraverts who have a fear of being alone than I know introverts who have a fear of not being alone.

Perhaps introversion and extraversion relate to art in that certain arts are more suited to certain temperaments.

Drug use is often a matter of emotional wounding though, or of undiagnosed biological mental health issues that keep on inflicting wounds greater than the psyche can handle. If you haven't had emotional support to deal with the pressures of fame and certain temptations, you're going to crack up under those pressures - but only if you also have an internal vaccuum.

A lot of people involved in art don't realize that kind of drug use degrades the quality of the art drastically. There's a culture of "use this to be better, faster, more loved" which is frankly counter-productive. But that culture is in every human endeavour, art is not alone in that.

Why is it that some make it and some crack? Perhaps it is that the tools they have available to maintain emotional health are only pills or powders and are not their own attitudes and beliefs.

Because yes, it's painful to aim for the stars and always fall short... as an artist, the internal vision is always so much better than the created result. You can get closer, you can enjoy the process of crafting something closer to the original aim each time... but as humans we will always fall short of the truly divine. That is the tragedy of art itself, of humanity itself. It must be accepted as not being a personal failure.

It is our nature to fail to be truly divine, and the struggle against that, even while failing, is what makes greatness.

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 May 06 - 02:13 PM

Personally , my artistic temperament is assuaged by getting the odd 100th post !

Subject: RE: The 'Artistic' Temperament-
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 May 06 - 02:17 PM

Like this !!