The van Gogh Tragedy – INLIGHT ARTS

The tortured artist trope is nonsense

Recent unpleasant events spurred me to explore what I am calling 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, mentally unstable, addicted, 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 or at all), 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, chose shallow relationships with prostitutes. Modern retrospectives determined that van Gogh suffered only episodic mental illness 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 mentally 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, albeit fictional, dancer. I can’t count the number of actor suicides and overdoses (our candle in the wind, Marilyn). We lost Lenny Bruce, John Belushi, and Chris Farley. Writers and poets drown in alcohol and cocaine. Papa Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf: all gone from our world by their own hands. How about musicians? Layne Staley, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Scott Weiland, Chris Cornell… all lost. Crafters (woodworkers and carvers, those who crochet or knit) retreat to flea markets and have long given up being appreciated, selling their creations for a fraction of what the work is worth.

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. Artists often cover the spiritual battle – like a war correspondent.

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, worried 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.”

Do we wonder where that lie originates? What pleases the devil more than destroying one of God’s children – especially one created to bring beauty into the world? The truth: Munch received treatment in 1908 and continued to paint for another thirty-five years.

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 that supports or even encourages the mental instability. That lifestyle, 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, and convinced that inner turmoil is the job description, 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 that 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 may hang around the artist out of selfishness. Wealth, high society, and exposure are hard to obtain. But for many, hanging around a genius is a sure bet to have one’s dreams come true! 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. The story of Happy Little Trees Bob Ross provides a clear picture of what I mean: the documentary alleges his business partners abused him and stole from him.

The result is twofold: 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 further into a 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 untrustworthy people and distrusting trustworthy people. And when the loving person reaches out, or treads lightly, the artist will become more distrusting. It’s a no-win situation.

Separated from God

Many people don’t know that before van Gogh picked up a paintbrush, he tried to become a preacher. In 1879, he went to serve the coal miners of the Borinage in Belgium. He gave away his clothes, slept on straw, and nursed the injured after mine disasters. Church officials found his zeal embarrassing and did not renew his post. Rejected by the institution he had given himself to, van Gogh drifted from the church. Yet he never stopped searching. In a letter to Theo, he wrote that the best way to know God is to love many things.

That is the artist’s calling in a sentence. One of the first artists in Scripture is not a king or a prophet but a craftsman. In Exodus, Bezalel is filled with the Spirit of God “in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.” Creativity is not a wound we bleed from. It is a gift we receive from the Creator, and it reflects His image in us.

The tortured artist trope tells a different story. It says the gift comes from pain, and that suffering is the price of talent. Cut off from the true Source, the artist looks for substitutes: the bottle, the applause, the approval of the gallery owner, the reassurance of the wrong people. None of these can carry the weight of a soul. When they fail, as they always do, the artist concludes that the darkness was the source all along.

Reconnecting with God does not mean the struggle disappears. Faith is not a replacement for a doctor, a counselor, or medication. Often those are the very hands God sends. But faith changes the question. It is no longer “How much must I suffer to make something worthwhile?” It becomes “Who gave me this gift, and how do I care for it?” An artist who knows they are loved does not need to be broken to be valuable. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted,” the Psalmist writes. He is near to the artist, too.

Taught to Settle

I’ll say it: Society, overall, has accepted and even learned to value uninspired work. We crave unhealthy and forgettable food, read tripe (if we read at all), tune to mass-market music, and binge-watch formula melodramas. Our focus — our market demand — drives the supply of minor or uninspired producers, who flood the market with fast fashion, fast food, mass-produced banality to capture our dollars.

I recently chatted about this societal woe with a talented woodworker. He produces beautiful, ornate cutting boards, charcuterie platters, and similar. He expressed concern that his prices were too dear when a number of shoppers claimed they could (and would) purchase “the same thing” at any local store. But are those two products really the same? One should not compare a one-of-a-kind, handmade, hand-carved, solid wood piece of art with a mass-produced particle board slab. I assured him his pricing was more than fair – he just needed to find his audience.

Our uninformed taste harms artists in two ways:

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 deemed sheer luck. I have several fine art clients who have just about given up because when they submit, they are told they are not what the market demands.
Excellence is undifferentiated. In our mass market hypnotized society, people have no sense of what is brilliant and unique versus what is commonplace. The market feeds us fast food, we eat it, and have no sense it’s not cuisine. Without our own interest in the arts, exposure to true beauty, or core education, 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 unstable.

People cannot accept that a genius does not need to be unwell or unstable. The eccentricity explains why that person is creative and excuses or explains a lack of talent (stable people have no talent?). This romanticizing of mental instability is dangerous. It’s not romantic to see an artist have a breakdown, be unstable, or consider self-harm. And worse, although correlation between creativity and mental illness does not exist, research has found a correlation between an art career and suicidal ideation.

Perhaps society’s lack of support and appreciation for art and creativity is the cause? Society’s indifference doesn’t cause mental illness, but like a rejecting parent, it makes the weight much harder to carry. When no one notices the beauty of their work, some artists stand out the only way left: by playing up their eccentricity.

Lack of Opportunity and Appreciation

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 and salaries for athletes, 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.

Let’s not avoid discussing the value placed on art. An artist should not use the local convenience store or gas station 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. 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?

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 artists of our world can struggle with 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. Attend plays and read self-published writing. Pay for fine photography. Attend local music venues. Get the T-shirt. Share the artist’s work on social media!

And encourage the artist you love to get the mental health support he or she needs. If you are an artist, check in with yourself and seek the support you need.

Van Gogh may have believed the sadness would last forever. He was wrong. More than a century later, his sunflowers still glow and his stars still swirl, bringing joy to millions who never knew his pain. The beauty outlived the darkness. Imagine what he might have created had he been surrounded by people who valued him, a church that welcomed him, and the care he needed. We cannot change his story, but we can change the next one. If you are an artist, your gift is not a curse to endure. It is a light entrusted to you. Guard it, share it, and let others help you carry it. If you love an artist, show up: buy the painting, attend the reading, ask how they are really doing. The world does not need another tragedy. It needs your art, and it needs you whole.

If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988 (U.S.) to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.