Artists, You Will Never Recapture 1870s Paris

Let go of pretension and move on

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1872)

There’s a mystique of “being an artist” — the artist as rebel. It’s the idolization of the artist as the rogue creative genius who sneers at convention, a virtual deity among mere mortals. Think Picasso, Dali, Rodin, and Gauguin among others. The hagiography of the holy egoism of genius excuses substance abuse, sexual promiscuity…