Heartbreaking Facts About Tragic Artists
“Tragedy is the greatest art form of all. It gives us the courage to continue with our life by exposing us to the pain of life. It is unsentimental, it takes us seriously as human beings, it is not condescending.
Paradoxically, by seeing pain we are made greater, it becomes a need.”—Howard Baker.
Great art and greater pain go together in our culture like peanut butter and jelly. Or at least that’s how the story goes. More people have come forward to critique how quick the assumptions that pain is a prerequisite for artistic achievement. Certainly, pain that actually hurts people (or worse) is not the price we must pay to have good novels, paintings, songs, and movies. But as one reads through the history of artists across all fields, pain becomes a suspiciously reoccurring theme. But does the world really need help from art to make artists suffer? Paint a depressing picture to these 42 heartbreaking facts about tragic artists.
Tragic Artists Facts
42. A Little Bit of Sympathy
Aristocratic inbreeding came hard for the Post-Impressionist French artist Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec. Born to wealthy first cousins in 1864, Toulouse-Lautrec inherited a disease that stunted the growth of his legs.
His adult height was just 5 feet tall. To cope with his angst, he became addicted to the “green fairy,” AKA absinthe.
During his 36 years of life, Toulouse-Lautrec also became as a leading name in art for his empathetic treatment of tawdry subjects, such as cabaret, in Parisian life.
41. Fitzgerald in Flames
It’s a shame that people remember Zelda Fitzgerald as simply the wife of F. Scott. The socialist was also a writer and dancer in her own right, sharing her husband’s artistic preferences. But she also shared his instabilities.
A history of mental issues, not helped by her failing marriage, put her in the Highland Mental Hospital in 1936, where Zelda stayed for 12 years. When the hospital caught fire in 1948, it took Zelda with it.
40. When Art Becomes the End of Life
Suicide, particularly the suicide of his own father, was a common topic John Berryman’s poetry. In the winter of 1971, life in art collided with life again, as Berryman flung himself off the Washington Avenue Bridge to his own death.
The poet had been the recipient of the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and Bolingen Prize, but this prestige was not enough to keep him on this side of the divide between life and death.
