True art vs. fame for fame's sake

by The Stranger

On 6/1/08, in the Sunday Times was a book review of a new bio:

POSTHUMOUS KEATS, the life and work of poet John Keats who died at the age of 25, far from home, poor, in Rome. Family members were either dead, or estranged from him. The woman he loved was convinced they had no future together. He had no reputation, or success. What must it be like to die at that age, in those circumstances? The review mentions that today Keats “ranks with Shakespeare now, in talent if not in achievement, and the homes where he so suffered in Italy and England have become museums. His grave in Rome is a pilgrimage site, the poems he scrawled and saw decried are everywhere anthologized….and this Mozart of musical language has become the very emblem of romantic gain and loss.”

I was reminded of the same feelings of awe, admiration, and inspiration that I had reading DEAR THEO, Vincent Van Gogh’s book of letters to his brother and sole benefactor, Theo. Van Gogh sold just one painting during his lifetime. He also died destitute, alone, in obscurity. Who is “now a multimillion-dollar franchise on the auction block.”

I was driving down Robertson Blvd. this afternoon. And all of a sudden there was a pack of paparazzi surrounding a woman whose last name is Kardashian. I heard someone say “She’s famous for being famous.” And that “She comes from a wealthy family...

And what they left behind - the poems and paintings - thrills, moves and inspires us so today because they labored on behalf of a LOVE that had nothing to do with fame or wanting to be famous. And everything to do with Beauty. With Truth. With what it means to be Human in the fullest, deepest, richest sense of that word.

Just to be a contrarian here, but how does this essayist know that Van Gogh, Keats, et al, were all motivated by such noble, saintly motives? Had Mozart died at 25, rather than 35, I'm sure he too would have been included in this ridiculous "Pantheon of Saintly Artists With No Desire for Fame or Money." My point? At the heart of every artist, there are always vain and practical desires. And it's nothing to be ashamed of.

At the heart of every artist, there are always vain and practical desires. And it's nothing to be ashamed of.

John Keats was disappointed by the meager sales of his first volume of poetry and decided to get into the playwriting business, which was much more lucrative.

He still wrote his poems on the side, of course, and he was delighted when his second volume generated higher sales and wrote letters to his friends and family telling them how much more profitable writing might become.

Keats wrote poems for the same reason an engineer designs circuits: he was really good at it, he enjoyed doing it, he enjoyed being complimented by others for the good job he did, and people were willing to pay him to do it if he was good enough.

van gogh remarked:

“you can’t do anything without money

and there’s never enough of it.”

which lead me to believe that he wasn’t all that altruistic but to some degree materialistic.

the context was money for art supplies.

Sometimes, that which an ‘artist’ produces is so personal as to be private, as in the thoughts of one, written down in fiction and non-fiction. There are perhaps hundreds of thousands of novels and collections of essay which only family members will someday read and reflect over. If money is not needed, why sell such personal things?

Many critics still take Donizetti to task for writing so many substandard operas. The man had to eat and support his family. Do they really think that in the rough and tumble world of early 19th century opera he would lock himself in his room and say “Honey, hold all calls for 5 years, I’m writing a masterpiece!”

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