The tortured artist trope is nonsense

Recent unpleasant events spurred me to explore The van Gogh Tragedy. Considered one of the most talented artists in history, van Gogh suffered a life of commercial failure, loneliness, and rejection. This is his — and other artists’ — tragedy.

You know van Gogh’s work — like The Starry Night — and could never consider him anything but a genius. So, it may surprise you to learn that his contemporaries considered him a madman and a failure. He is the epitome of the tortured artist icon and many artists idealize his lifestyle. To be alone, unappreciated, unrecognized, insane, and ultimately suicidal, is a badge of honor. In some ways, struggling artists validate their talent by adopting this iconicity. The artist — and society — loses.

In this article, I seek to understand the path to The van Gogh Tragedy. I’ll examine how the wayward choice harms the artist. And I offer not only solutions so society can care for our most talented people but also steps we can take as passionate creators to not accept the tragic role.

The Tortured Artist Fallacy

The tortured (starving) artist is most associated with Vincent van Gogh, whose body of masterpieces was rejected by the 1880s art world. He self-medicated (with absinthe), lived in poverty (not eating properly), and spent several stints hospitalized for breakdowns, including the one after he chopped off his own ear. Correspondence between van Gogh and his friends and brother remains evidence that van Gogh actively withdrew from or attacked those who cared about him, preferring meaningless relationships with prostitutes. Modern retrospectives determined that van Gogh suffered only episodic mental illness which was worsened by malnutrition, insomnia, and alcohol.

We can, however, point to thousands of sane and stable artists across practices and genres. Jane Austen, Duke Ellington, and Pissarro were perfectly healthy and are still considered geniuses. Research confirms no correlation between creativity and mental illness. In fact, most tortured artists, van Gogh the exception, create their best work when they are healthy and clearheaded. Therefore, the concept of the tortured artist is a fallacy.

What results from the tortured artist lifestyle?

Watch Black Swan to witness the tortured dancer. I can’t count the number of actor-suicides and overdoses, although Marylin Monroe, Heath Ledger and Robin Williams come to mind. About comedians: We lost Lenny Bruce, John Belushi, and Chris Farley. Writers and poets drown in alcohol and cocaine. Pappy Hemmingway lost to a bullet; Sylvia Plath to a gas stove; Virginia Woolf to a river. Sculptors, painters, cartoonists, photographers. How about musicians? Layne Staley, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Scott Wyland, Chris Cornell… all lost from just this generation. Crafters (woodworkers and carvers, those who crochet or knit) hide out at flea markets and have long given up being appreciated, keeping a semblance of self-esteem. I’d add chefs, but for the most part, they express their anger instead of turning it inward.

And people welcome cuisine as a necessity.

The Artist’s Soul

To be an artist is to open oneself to the beauty — and the horror — of humanity. The artist delves deep into life. As a writer, every experience, personal story, social media post, becomes a point to ponder. As a photographer, I spend moments watching the weather, trees, and people, searching for that defining moment. To be an artist, one allows himself or herself to be hypersensitive to existence.

As you can expect, or as you know if you are an artist, that hypersensitivity and quiet observation can be a magical experience. Children playing and laughing. Kittens discovering a ball of yarn. The sunset over the Grand Canyon. While most see a moment to snap a selfie, an artist will absorb what he or she witnesses, intending to use that vision and those emotions to generate art.

However, beauty and love play on the human stage with tragedy and heartbreak. Not every story is a comedy. The artist is just as sensitive to betrayal, sickness, poverty, injustice, and cruelty. While most see a moment to reflect, an artist will absorb those painful emotions and experiences with the same intention to use that vision and those emotions to generate art.

Theo described Vincent in a letter to their younger sister as follows: “It seems as if he were two persons: one, marvelously gifted, tender and refined, the other, egotistic and hard-hearted. They present themselves in turns, so that one hears him talk first in one way, then in the other, and always with arguments on both sides. It is a pity that he is his own enemy, for he makes life hard not only for others but also for himself.”

Perhaps this empathy for suffering becomes too daunting to face. And, perhaps, mental illness or trauma exacerbates that experience. Curiously, many artists believe that if they address their mental challenges, they will lose their edge. Edvard Munch, the painter of The Scream, concerned if he became healthy he would no longer be able to paint, once wrote: “My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness.”

That attachment to the tragic artist trope leads the artist to commit unspeakable acts and accept untenable conditions. Aside from the artist not seeking medical or psychological support, he or she is likely to concoct a life the supports or even encourages the mental instability. That treatment, and the artist’s acceptance of it, becomes the reason for mental instability.

Surrounded by Pretenders

To perpetuate this melancholic, depressed, and tortured story, the artist will accept harmful people into his or her life. Desperate for acceptance and recognition, while wanting to experience inner turmoil at all times, artists will bond to those who:

Enjoy the artist’s failure. The artist may attract gallery owners or contest sponsors who are not interested in her work, but remain connected, reminding her she is not market-ready. The artist often has a circle of friends — or family — that ignore his work. Or offer him a pittance for what it’s worth to “be supportive.” Worse, the artist may choose a partner who reminds the artist to “grow up and get a proper job.” The artist does not decipher these messages as anything but criticism: perhaps she is not good enough or meant to be an artist.

Feed the artist’s mental illness or self-doubt. A supportive network would encourage the artist to create. Give the artist space to do so. Help the artist financially. Yet, most times, those closest to the artist question her talent, mock his activities as folly, and put pressure on the artist to earn “real” money.

Use the artist for their own personal gain. Family and friends (Courtney Love, Yoko Ono, and Amber Heard) may hang around the artist for what he or she can bring. Wealth, high society, and exposure are hard to obtain. But for a talentless or undiscovered person, hanging around a genius is a sure bet to have one’s dreams come true! I find it amusing who crawls out of the woodwork offering support when an artist is prolific, noticed, or successful. I also find it particularly curious how these unsupportive persons will go to great lengths to remove supportive people from the artist’s life. Do a little research about Happy Little Trees Bob Ross to get a sense of what I mean.

The result is two-fold: The artist is unaware (or in denial) of the true intentions of those surrounding him or her and suffers from their manipulation. The artist will continue to fail, feel alone, and suffer insult and negation. This is true if the artist has a childhood rejection wound. Or, the artist senses that everyone surrounding him or her is untrustworthy and dangerous. The artist will withdraw farther into his or her twisted reality, accepting poverty and loneliness as the price to pay. This is true if the artist has a childhood abandonment wound.

In both cases, the artist is trusting the wrong people and distrusting the right people. And when the loving person reaches out, or treads lightly, the artist will become more distrusting. It’s a no-win situation.

An Uncultured Population

I’ll say it: Society, overall, has poor taste. We crave disgusting food, read tripe (if we read at all), tune to unsophisticated music, and binge-watch formula melodramas. Our focus — our market demand — drives the supply of minor or no-talent producers, who flood the market with garbage to capture our dollars. Our poor taste harms artists in two ways:

1. Excellence must fight for recognition. Any creator suffers in our modern market. Try to get your song heard, your story read, or your painting shown in the social media sea. Try to submit to agents or galleries who are flooded with work. It’s impossible and recognition is sheer luck.
2. Excellence is undifferentiated. In our feigned educated society, people have no sense of what is brilliant and unique and what is trash or commonplace. The market feeds us fast food, we eat it, and have no sense it’s garbage. Without our own interest in the arts, we have no context to differentiate tripe from treasure.

Worse, a 2014 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology confirmed consumers deem artists’ work “more impressive” if the viewer is told the artist is idiosyncratic or unstable. To the public, an artist is not an artist unless he or she is odd or insane.

Talentless people cannot accept that a genius does not need to be insane. The eccentricity explains why that person is creative and excuses or explains the talentless. This romanticizing of mental instability is criminal. It’s not romantic to see an artist have a breakdown, be unstable, or commit suicide. And worse, although no correlation between creativity and mental illness exists, research has found a correlation between an art career and suicidal thoughts does exist.

Perhaps society’s lack of support and appreciation for art and creativity is the cause? Like a rejecting parent, it’s society that drives the creative mad.

Lack of Exposure or Opportunity

Our society is not welcoming to artists. And the trope of the starving artist is accurate: wages are low or nonexistent. We squeeze the budget for the football team, but cut the art and music programs. While we have giant arenas for people who throw or kick balls around, galleries are few. You argue: but we have arenas for musicians. Sure, for those musicians who have contracts with recording companies. For the budding musician, dive bars and small venues with little to no exposure are the reality. And overall, true genius drowns in the social media market flooded with tripe.

Recently, I had dinner at an intimate but popular and busy restaurant where I enjoyed the solo performance of a guitarist with an amazing voice. He performed classic rock ballads with style. And I was the only one in that restaurant clapping. I counted forty-six people eating and chatting. No one noticed the talent in the room’s corner.

How many venues do you know that celebrate promising or experimental artists? Sure, in high school, budding artists have opportunities to perform. Aren’t those kids cute? And then, society forgets about them. Some pursue music or art or performance education, only to suffer with repeated and ignored attempts for recognition.

Insult to Injury

Let’s not avoid discussing the value placed on art. An artist should not use Wawa as his sole source of nutrition, but poverty dictates he does so. An artist I knew worked for sixteen hours on a piece to have a potential buyer offer him $60. The paint, canvas, and tools cost double that. The popular song “It Costs That Much ’Cause it Takes Me Fucking Hours” captures the sentiment. If we want healthy artists, we must reward them.

How would you feel if your boss gave you $2 for your week’s work? Unappreciated? Depressed? Rejected? Neglected? That is exactly how I felt when an acquaintance was offended that I was charging her $500 for engagement, wedding, and reception photography. Yeah, hello. My usual starting rate is $7,000 for that package. She balked — and walked — because it was too pricey.

This ain’t you and your mobile phone camera, dearie.

The lack of appreciation, the hesitancy to respect the artist enough to offer a fair price, the focus on home store prints — and pop music, and pop literature, and street artists — all create an uninspiring field in which the artist of our world can wallow in poverty and depression.

Solutions

According to van Gogh’s brother, van Gogh’s last words were, “The sadness will last forever.”

That doesn’t need to be the case.

We can nurture creative people, no matter our subjective opinion of the work produced. Get your kid that guitar. Buy her the editing program. Pay for the trip to read his poetry on stage. But don’t forget the adult artist. Support local art collectives. Don’t buy prints at the grocery — buy an artist’s original work. Pay for fine photography. Attend local music venues. Get the tee shirt. Share the artist’s work on social media!

I can count hundreds — hundreds — of creative friends. Musicians who still play at the local restaurant. Photographers and filmmakers showcasing their work in small galleries and craft fairs. Actors performing at empty local playhouses. Poets self-publishing because there’s no other way to see themselves in print. As an artist, I felt the sting of rejection numerous times. “Friends” not attending my book launch because “it was a good beach day.” Or family not signing up for my Patreon. Partners not interested in reading my work or refusing to sign up for Medium or my workshops. Or those close to me not noticing, or leaving me, when I was emotionally drowning.

That is no way for an artist to live and feel.

Encourage the artist you love to get the mental health support he or she needs. If you are unwilling to demand he or she seek help, you are the problem. If you are an artist, check in with yourself and seek the support you need. Be careful who you befriend, but don’t push people away. Those who truly love and appreciate you will tolerate your roller-coaster moods, as long as you are taking responsibility for your own mental wellness.

Because nobody should lose an ear.