Why Do Artists Die So Young?
Is it coincidence that so many artist’s lives have come to such abrupt ends, or that so many have died by their own hands? Writers, chefs, musicians. Are we more tortured somehow than those who choose to pursue other passions? Perhaps we die too soon because we live so fully within our minds, always creating that which is brand new, but fail to live enough within our bodies while we have the chance.
I am aware of people living the human experience all around me. I just can’t relate to the way in which they do it. I am aware that comparatively, my way is deemed “incorrect.” That somehow, I’m not doing it “right.” But I can’t change the way my blood flows. That feeling of being most alive comes when I am able to successfully extract the words from my mind and fix them onto the page for the living to read.
“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for
and I hate very much to leave it.”
— Ernest Hemingway, in For Whom the Bell Tolls
Painters and tattooists see canvases all around them. Where others may see a wall, a piece of glass, or human flesh, they see something else entirely just waiting to be born. They conceive it, fertilize it and bring it into the world, and not for themselves, because they had seen it all along. They create it for those who can only see the blank wall.
“Most young kings get their heads cut off.”
— Jean-Michel Basquiat, written within his 1982 painting, Charles I
Forms are unveiled from messy wet clay by sculptors who convince them to appear in order to prove to the less imaginative that they had always been there. The living cannot do this, because they’re too busy being busy to allow their minds to breathe and uncover life’s hidden magic. But the artists, the creators, the dreamers, we cannot truly live, because our minds are too full to allow the obvious (that which is present right in front of us) in for too long.
“If you want to create new things
for this world, never listen to anybody.
You have to suck your wisdom, all the knowledge,
from your thumb. Your own self.”
— Stanislaw Szukalski, in an excerpt from the 2018 documentary, Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Stanislaw Szukalski
Artists enjoy mystery far too much to understand the appeal of the apparent and it’s this love of the unexplored that gives the world such incredible works of art.
Is there more joy in seeing what exists in front of you naturally, and in appreciating that thing, or in describing it in vivid detail to someone without sight? It’s in uncovering the new, in experiencing something for the first time that those who are like me feel alive at all. Our stories, our etchings, our songs, are not read, seen or heard by anyone until we breathe life into them and place them in front of living people. And in doing so, a little of our lives is pulled from us, each time. Because to feel alive again, we must start from nothing once more.
“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”
— Vincent Van Gogh
I live for the unknown and cannot find a way to breathe fully with only the known playing over and over on a loop in my mind. The thought of it makes my lungs open less and less.
Life is entirely a series of gives and takes, though. What breathes in oxygen, exhales carbon dioxide and what needs carbon dioxide to survive, gives life to the oxygen breathers. Thus, if what the artist provides to the living is necessary, so, too, is what the living gives back to the artist. And what is that thing? Money? Fame? Validation.
“The dark covers me, and I cannot run now.”
— Amy Winehouse, in Wake Up Alone
We die when our bleeding pours out faster than it can be pumped back in by the ones we bled for.
That must be the moment Hemingway pulled back the hammer and when Basquiat’s veins refused to endure any more inspiration. What was flowing from their minds was too great and too fast for adequate replenishment. No accolade enough, no prize sufficient, no friendship or love symbiotic enough to put back in what had been taken.
Yet, if no one takes from them at all, if no one ever hears our music or studies our works, have we ever truly lived at all? Perhaps, if we’ve left something behind to be noticed later — even by one soul.
You see, you cannot separate the art from the artist. So, to love one is to love the other. But wouldn’t it be great if that deep love and appreciation were enough to have kept these artists alive just a little while longer?
