If we take it as read....

[Leanne]

Aaargh, the "better off dead" dilemma of the artiste with the posh e...

I find I am more impressed with an artist's masterwork if I can see the process that's gone into it. Perhaps it's simply that I feel closer to a writer who is human enough to produce crap sometimes And I'm afraid I simply do not hold with fanatics who will gush about everything an artist has ever produced, or buy their sweat bands on ebay, or build them impossibly tall pedestals so that they are untouchably above humankind.

For all that I love the sparkling wit and sarcasm of Oscar Wilde, and I adore the elegant aesthetics of his verse, it is "De Profundis" that leaves my throat raw and stops my heart. Had I read nothing else of his, that one essay would be enough to catapult him to the top of my list. And yet, I wouldn't have left him alone with my husband It is the ability to be essentially human that most endears an artist to me. If that is not communicated in a thousand poems, novels, essays, whatever, no matter how technically brilliant they may be deemed, then I'm just not interested.