What truly is the cause of genius?
- Divinity
- Human Talent
- Insanity
- Biological Predisposition
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Link between Insanity and Creation
Do you have to be insane in order to create beautiful works of art? Scharfstein as well as others make a good case for this. Many great artists share many of the same traits. They were either insane, mentally ill, or living a degrading lifestyle. The question is, are these conditions the recipe for masterpiece, or is it just the lifestyle of a great artist that puts them through so much pain and mental instability. Plato believed that artists were bestowed with a divine madness, while Aristotle links creation and depression as critical parts of one another. Is it possibly a genetic trait? Studies done at Yale University suggest that creativity and psychosis are genetically linked. Geniuses, the study suggest, are a combination of both genetic traits where individuals are at a predisposition for high IQ and low LI, which is the ability to filter unnecessary stimuli. This brings up another interesting aspect.
What truly is the cause of genius?
What truly is the cause of genius?
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ReplyDeleteI think we like to find that those who we idolize as incredible artists led tortured lives. I think it is perhaps because we love the romanticism of the idea of the tortured hero. I am in no way denying that many famous artists led tortured lives, but many also did not. We also love the idea of the savant. Reading these traits and associations into the lives of our hero artists makes them much more interesting people, it makes us want to read their biographies.
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