Why Is The Starving Artist Dead In A Ditch?
How an old concept is a false reality today.
The concept of the starving artist has only been around for a few hundred years. It started in 1847 when a man named Henri Murger published Scènes de la vie de Bohème which are a collection of stories that romanticize poverty.
The result of that published work brought the starving artist idea to light as plays were created from the stories. Examples are stories like Rent where we follow a filmmaker struggling to keep food on the table. There is also Moulin Rouge which revolves around a writer/poet living in a rundown room and falling in love with a cabaret actress and courtesan.
These plays and many others have seeped into the modern culture to give the impression that all artists are starving artists. It’s gotten to the point now that in modern culture people presume pursuing an arts degree or living a lifestyle as an artist is a joke.
But what is worse of all is that these sort of impressions have made several of us conform to them. That or we find it very difficult to refute it when it’s brought up in conversation.
Deep down, we know that the starving artist is indeed dead. As Michael Thompson has shown, we can work for free and still thrive. Furthermore, Jeff Goins and many artists out there…
