The Artistic Temperament

“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs . . . But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament. Thus, the very great artists are able to be ordinary men—men like Shakespeare or Browning. There are many real tragedies of the artistic temperament, tragedies of vanity or violence of fear. But the great tragedy of the artistic temperament is that it cannot produce any art” (G.K. Chesterton as quoted in Thomas Peters, The Christian Imagination, p. 64).