There is no tabula rasa mind from which the genius spring from birth, fully formed... Never has been.
The few artists who happen to achieve their full potential in the course of their working life (the so-called 'geniouses') have grown slowly, following a learning curve. And that learning curve starts with the teachers, the influences and the first fumbling experiments.
Some artists happen to have both the talent, the luck to be able to fine-hone and develop that talent, and the time and economic means to devote themselves to their Art.
A teacher once told me, "genious is 1% talent, 99% hard work"...Well, that's not quite true.
Some people work 500%, yet still lack the undefinable something which makes the difference between just 'good', and 'great'.
But that doesn't mean their art is less valuable, just that the really great talents are few and far between. This naturally causes some envy, perhaps jusifiably so as a lot of brilliant people when faced with success can turn into/come across as a bit up their own.
That doesn't meant that collective art will automaticallyproduce any better results than the lone individual, each approach have their advantages- A lot of art, especially in brief partnerships between two equally ambitious and able craftsmen (songwriters, f.i.) can lift the results to a whole new level where the sum is greater than the parts, something which they never could have made alone.
However, every scenes have their mediocrities and hangers-on, there are few names who will be remembered... Not always the "great ones" either, lol- will the retirement homes in a few decades' time play britney and GA?
While the romantic ideal stereotype of the suffering, white male genious Artist with a capital 'A' is easily ludicrous, and the pointless 'up on a pedestal', 'larger than life' artist myth is bollocks, there is a part of me who still thinks that it's a good thing to retain some sense of fascination for mystery, the fantastic, lofty ideals/visions, re: the artistic process...
Rationalism only gets you so far (socialist realism, anyone?), and some of the psychological or (neuro-?)biological processes which makes up the 'inspirations' which fire up creativity tend to express themselves better in irrational, intuitive form- Whether one chooses to think of this as 'mystical' or not, there will always be an element of this [the unknown, irrational, intuitive] in artistic creation...
Luckily one doesn't need to be a 'genious' to have access to such inspiration.
The more, the merrier.
