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He said, ‘Maybe people have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.’

You told Misty all this.
You said how Michelangelo was a manic-depressive who portrayed himself as a flawed martyr in his painting. Henri Matisse gave up being a lawyer because of appendicitis. Robert Schumann only began composing after his right hand became paralyzed and ended his career as a concert pianist…
You talked about Nietzsche and his tertiary syphilis. Mozart and his uremia. Paul Klee and the scleroderma that shrank his joints and muscles to death. Frida Kahlo and the spina bifida that covered her legs with bleeding sores. Lord Byron and his clubfoot. The Bronte Sisters and their tuberculosis. Mark Rothko and his suicide. Flannery O’Connor and her lupus. Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.
‘According to Thomas Mann,’ Peter said, ’ ‘Great Artists are great invalids.’ ‘

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