‘You don’t have to be tortured to make great art,’ says founder of mental health support organisation Artist Wellbeing
From Vincent van Gogh to Virginia Woolf, from Nina Simone to Amy Winehouse, the tortured-artist archetype looms large: private torment fuelling public brilliance.
But across opera, theatre, film and television, a growing movement is pushing back against what many now insist is a corrosive myth – the romanticised necessity of creative martyrdom.
“Artists don’t need help because they’re weak; they need it because they’re strong,” said Annilese Miskimmon, the artistic director at English National Opera. “They’re strong enough to rehearse deeply traumatic parts multiple times a day and then perform those roles to order in front of thousands of people.”
Miskimmon recently directed Dead Man Walking, a true story that opens with the rape and murder of two teenagers – and closes with the state-sanctioned killing of the murderer, scrutinised by the grieving parents and the teenagers’ ghosts.
