Violent and disturbed minds create great work
Does one have to sport a scraggly beard and paint from an attic to be true to his art?
WHY is it that violent and disturbed minds create great works of art? Like Vincent Van Gogh, who chopped off his ear at a prostitute’s behest and then did a self-portrait with a bandaged head.
Points out one art curator, “For a long time, eccentricity was synonymous with artists. Their image was of distracted, straggly and unkempt beings. They projected a madness that seeped into their work.”
Meanwhile, poets Shelly and Byron were known to be idealistic and egoistic respectively, to the point of eccentricity. Their flights of fantasy added to their uniqueness of perspective, reflected in works such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and that of Dadaistic and Surrealist masters like Salvador Dali.
Explains another English lecturer, “The after-effects of World War I and II brought home the disillusionment of the massive destruction and loss of life, giving rise to these movements.”
Aporajita Pal Mukerji (Mumbai - India), online gallery owner, says of “maverick” artist Bhupen Khakhar, “referred to as ‘eccentric’ simply because he was gay, and bold enough to acknowledge it in his times”. However, philosopher Prabodh Parikh believes eccentricity alone doesn’t necessarily make someone a genius, though it might add a touch of romanticism. “If you read Van Gogh’s letters to his brother, he talks of practical stuff like growing potatoes, the poverty of farmers, etc and emerges as a compassionate man. And, while Picasso’s art and life may be termed eccentric, Plato termed such eccentrities ‘divine madness’, let’s not forget that poet T S Eliot wore three-piece suits!” American poet Wallace Stevens headed an insurance firm. Psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty explains why skewed minds may create great art, “The eccentricity of great artists resulted in spontaneous brushplay. Anything that is spontaneous is also creative, because it’s honest.” In every human being resides a devil and an angel. The polarities co-exist and when a maverick sketches, the creative act is a spontaneous expression of either.
However, while the media and public lap up artists’ eccentricities like Julius Macwan in his long skirts, “to prove that men can sport the garment too”, it may not mean that their staid counterparts lack in creative inspiration.
Yes...Matisse...well there is always the exception that proves the rule.
If you met Robbie Burns you might think he was a tax department official... oh, hang on, he was
PaulC: sorry to hear that. Maybe you did not trust your instincts of you having an artistic character.
UKEng: Do we all at some point in future be thankful to Hitler for doing what he did, resulting in a Jewish country after approx 2000 years????
I present to you...... MATISSE.... arguably, along with Picasso, the greatest painter of the 20th century.........if you met him you would conclude that he was as exciting as an accountant.
"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365
not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the
many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers
were given. Satan - 10."
Yes thats why the product of Hilters action created the nation of Israel...lol
-----------------
HE WHO DARES WINS
Oh I agree, I think violent and disturbed is the wrong description. However I wouldn't call them normal either.
You know a lot more about them than I do, Gypsy (or maybe Google is your friend). Having an "unconventional life" is really rather different from having a "violent and disturbed mind". Anyone who sets out to make a living as an artist or poet has already chosen an unconventional path and one often fraught with risk, so artists are by definition eccentric (not average, not "normal") but I don't know of any special reason to suppose that the manifestation of that eccentricity will have to be violence and insanity. As for depression, that is a very common condition.
You've got it upside-down Skdkak ... I have the violent and disturbed mind (as you have rightly observed), so I'm just peed off that I didn't get the artistic genius to go with it. It makes me very, VERY ANGRY ;)
they were finally Losers; as world recognise their work and art only after they left this world.
Just recalling the poetry of George Herbert, which is quite apt in this situation.....
PULLEY....
"When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
"Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can.
Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie,
Contract into a span."
So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure.
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.
"For if I should," said he,
"Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
So both should losers be.
"Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness.
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast."
VB: God has blessed everything (all the pleasures from world) to humans and finally blessed him with restlessness to avoid people following the creations rather identifying the creator. So restlessness made humans to ultimately revert to The Creator...
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at VB :-S
Are you some kind of artist or u think u are and we have not mentioned that category anywhere above.. the reason of ur being a little pi***d off. that is what ur posts sound like.
???????
Hallucination is probably is the most creative state of mind.... People love stoned slash over a sober slash!!!
Shamz thinks that "a conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking".
Many artists didn't have what they wanted from the materialistic world VB. Many lived in poverty. I think there problems is that they saw things differently then most people, due to having a very high intelligence, which in turn made them emotionally unstable.
spent their LIFE in searching for a solution or PEACE of MIND; which they could not find it on the surface of the planet......
Just think if one gets it whatever he wants from the materialistic world; would HE/SHE would be satisfied or contented.....NO and NEVER, you know WHY GYPSY?
But all of those people you just mentioned had their eccentricites Paul Cowan.
For example: Monet was suicidal and attempted suicide several times, he also fathered a child out of wedlock and lived with the mother (something unheard of in 1868).
Picasso was a well known womanizer and also suffered from periods of depression. (His Blue period!)
Browning was "normal" in that he didn't show any signs of manic-depression, but he grew up in a bohemian family (his grandmother was half-black) and lord knows his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, had quote the life (semi-invalid and her father's prisoner, forbidden to marry, etc). They lived a very bohemian life and belonged to intellectual circles filled with manic-depressives, drunks, etc.
Unfortunately not enough is known about Shakespeare to make guesses at his life.
Leonardo...well...the man was anything but normal, he may not have had known episodes of manic depression but for a 5 year old to paint pictures of fire breathing snakes...well....Also, he never married, had no known mistresses but was VERY close to his two male apprentices...So being gay in the 1500's is pretty much the equivilent of insanity.
Keats lost his entire family and his own life to tuberculosis and died at 25. I can't imagine that losing your entire family would leave you emotionally stable.
Wordsworth has an illegitimate daughter with a french woman, was forced out of France and his supsequent "behaviour" (gambling, drinking, depression, etc) meant he was unable to marry the childs mother. He did marry, but it's suggested that he had a rather...close relationship to his sister, and most of his poems deal with death, seperation, endurance and grief...um, classic depression?
Not to continue, but even if there were no obvious signs of insanity, substance abuse, manic-depression, etc, All of the worlds famous artists had what would be considered at the times unconventional upbringings and lifestyles.
when your line of thinking goes beyond most people.
_______________________________________________________
"You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back."
Many were drug induced/high when they were at their creative peaks.
but most show either a degree of Manic Depression or Autism. That does not make them mad, it makes them different. Hence why they produce the work they do.
My thoughts are my own, but I doubt my Mum would agree with some of them.
Random? What about all the normal artists out there? Monet, Leonardo, Stubbs, Constable, Keats, Browning, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Burns, Picasso, .... there's another "random" list and I'm not sure any of them had significant problems.
there is no connection that you may read between the lines. These are randomly taken examples
Choose any characteristic and any group of people and then go looking for examples and you can always "prove" your theory.
Are all top Politicians adulterers? Look at the facts ... Clinton, Kennedy, Blair, Sarkozy ... perhaps one has to be an adulterer to be a successful politician, the facts prove the theory, don't they?
Was Byron egotistical because he was an artist? Obviously so. It was nothing to do with being LORD Byron, the head of a noble family in an era when that must have been something like being a minor Emir.
Some artists are good at reflecting what ordinary people feel, others present an original view of the world around them, others may live in a personal nightmare and have that reflected in their work.
To find out how much madness or eccentricity the average famous artist has you need to make a random selection of artists - say the last 100 to have works sold at Sotheby's for over $50,000 - and examine their lives. Cherry-picking your examples simple reinforces your own bias.
And why does this topic lump poets with painters? What's the connection there?
we can also call them "emotionally-challenged" but it can deal a lot of things from that, sometimes Great things.
I'm reading Jeffrey Archer's- False Impression now, his (Van Gogh) self mutilation resulted to a price less impressionist painting.
Other than eccentricity, how about being Narcissistic?
can it create great work?^_^
or better call them fountainhead
Insane is to harsh a word. Emotionally unstable would be better. Most suffered from manic-depression.
To create anything of value, to be noticed, one has to smash apart conformity,
Conformity is the enemy of creativity.
It's a myth that 'artists' ,of any meduim, are crazy or look different - we come in all shapes and sizes, the only common factor is that we think somewhat differently than the majority, although we all don't think the same.
Andre Derain used to wear a painted wooden tie! yet Albert Camus was a goalkeeper!
"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365
not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the
many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers
were given. Satan - 10."
violent and disturbed - is a bit harsh, the line between insanity and genius is a grey one.
Let's not forget however that T.S. Eliot was a bit of a plagerist who suffered often from "broken nerves". He was also an anti-semite.