Does that gain him any artist cred for you?

Nope. Not every crazy person is an artist. Not every artist is a crazy person.

I'm just saying that those that pursue art are self selected to being more sensitive (not in the weepy "sensitive" stereotype but simply more attuned to nuance) and that the pursuit itself is stressful and isolating which tends to exacerbate things.

Aside from that, Hec, I'm assuming you can tell that he didn't mean it when he started drawing those figures. Or you could tell when he stopped drawing it and was being farmed out?

Allyson, Bernard Sumner from New Order was part of an experiement where they tested the effect of Prozac on creativity. I read an interview once where he felt that it made his lyrics flatter and less deep.

Aside from that, Hec, I'm assuming you can tell that he didn't mean it when he started drawing those figures.

Meaning it doesn't make it art. There are plenty of sincere and awful writers out there. Original and well-executed are the axes of my standard for quality. And, now that I think of it, I'm going to insist that high quality is one of the distinctions between art and Not!Art.

Certainly there are going to be artistic failures but those are (I think) related to taking artistic risks. Exploring new forms. Learning them on the job. Stretching beyond your strengths to give your work more reach.

I have absolutely no doubt that anti-depressants can negatively effect creativity. I also don't think that has anything to do with the wanky Romantic tortured artist stereotype.

It's cliched, sentimental. It panders to its audience instead of expressing the artist's vision.

David, you know I am the elitistest elitist that ever elited, but, I'm gonna have to call this opinion crazy, my fren. You thinking a work sucks does not make it any less a work, and doesn't actually say anything about whether the work successfully gets across a point to people other than you.

And even if a work objectively sucks: you haven't explained why suckitude and art are mutually exclusive.

I also don't think that has anything to do with the wanky Romantic tortured artist stereotype.

Again, I don't think we have to limit ourselves to Young Werther. That trope and a long list of damaged creators extends well into the 20th century. As a stereotype it's probably even more potent as a myth in the 20th century than in the 19th. I mean, Blake and Byron weren't particularly depressed and mopey and tortured. Neither was Shelley, nor Keats. Coleridge definitely. Coleridge qualifies.

Please ignore my capitalisation of Romance, Hec. I was more stapling my hand to my forehead that referring to a particular genre.

David, you know I am the elitistest elitist that ever elited, but, I'm gonna have to call this opinion crazy, my fren.

Good lord, that's way more of a consensus opinion than a crazy one. It's not an outlier opinion, that's right down the middle.

You thinking a work sucks does not make it any less a work, and doesn't actually say anything about whether the work successfully gets across a point to people other than you.

First of all, "a work" is not necessarily artful. Because somebody made it doesn't make it art. Getting a point across is not even necessarily a criteria. "A poem should not mean but be." Again, a common consesus aesthetic judgment.

And even if a work objectively sucks: you haven't explained why suckitude and art are mutually exclusive.

Because I am drawing a distinction between "art equals things which humans make" and "art equals really good things which people make." So the notion of quality is the distinction (cf., "original/execution" graph). Bad art is art which fails in either originality or execution or both. When it fails in that way it fails to meet the standard for Art.

I was more stapling my hand to my forehead that referring to a particular genre.

But that's where that gesture comes from. Anyway, whether it's a false stereotype or not it still has tremendous currency as a myth. Rock stars try to live that way every day. Except for the sensible ones, I suppose but they are failing at Rock Stardom.