Proposition: Great artists tend to have suffered (psychologically) at various times.
Cases in favour of the proposition: Beethoven, Billie Holiday, Nick Drake (if you regard him as great), Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis (ditto, ditto), Brian Wilson (abuse by dad), Nina Simone.
Cases against: Mozart (although he did lose quite a few children), Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Paul McCartney (although his mum died young), Stevie Wonder (although blind, seems to have been happy enough).
As a related issue, I'm not sure that suffering makes an artist a better person in terms of empathy, compassion and so on. I wouldn't say that Cobain and Curtis had much empathy, and their suicides had aspects of selfishness and even cruelty towards their loved ones.
Discuss.
Cases in favour of the proposition: Beethoven, Billie Holiday, Nick Drake (if you regard him as great), Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis (ditto, ditto), Brian Wilson (abuse by dad), Nina Simone.
Cases against: Mozart (although he did lose quite a few children), Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Paul McCartney (although his mum died young), Stevie Wonder (although blind, seems to have been happy enough).
As a related issue, I'm not sure that suffering makes an artist a better person in terms of empathy, compassion and so on. I wouldn't say that Cobain and Curtis had much empathy, and their suicides had aspects of selfishness and even cruelty towards their loved ones.
Discuss.