Have there ever been any great artists, poets, philosophers, etc. that are known (or guessed) to have had low intelligence, if not outright retardation?
Mikey Wild was a bit of a minor celebrity in Philadephia when I lived there. He had a small art show in a cafe I used to go to, someone I knew had a boyfriend who was making a film about his life and when he passed it was in the local paper. I bought one of his pieces once for a dollar.
I am going to go with “no” on this.
There might, possibly be some cases of “interesting” poets or artists (certainly not philosophers) who may, conjecturally, have been examples of savant syndrome (not that that necessarily implies low IQ), but I doubt that any such would rise to anywhere near the level of being considered “great”. Great art implies not just vividness or originality, but intellectual complexity and depth.
Of course, IQ tests were not invented until about 100 years ago, so anyone’s intelligence before that is a matter of conjecture, and can only be guessed at (very roughly) from the quality of their achievements. It is worth noting, also, that many people with high measured IQs achieve very little of any significance.
Philosophy is all about complex chains of reasoning, so doing philosophy, even at a mediocre, let alone “great”, level, most certainly requires considerable intellectual resources.
I was prompted to ask this because I recently heard a quip about Andy Warhol’s allegedly low IQ (an alleged fact that seems to be apocryphal in nature).
It made me wonder if there were other ‘major’ cultural figures considered to have been low intelligence.
Personally I’m not a fan of Warhol’s art, but to say he was unintelligent based on IQ tests says more about the uselessness of IQ tests than anything else.
I think he liked to have people think he was retarded and played it up for the cameras. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he started the rumor himself.
There has been an exhibition of paintings by George W Bush. Would that count?
No. The qualifier was “great” artists.
I don’t know how Warhol’s grades were, but he attended at least some college.
Yeah, Warhol was retarded like a fox.
Now, I once listened to a podcast about Mozart, and the guy talking about it was a really big fan and kept trying to defend his image and how he was represented in the movie… but his constant defending of Wolfgangus (apparently his actual birth name, since back then latinized versions of German names were all the rage. Don’t ask.) actually made the great composer look dumber and dumber.
He was all “they say that he acted like a child, but would a child speak about sex like this?” and then recited some sort of dumb pornographic poem he wrote to his cousin, and I kept thinking “well, yes. That’s not something an adult would write.”
So, yeah, I’m nominating Mozart.
Moderator Note
It counts as a political jab, which is against the rules of GQ. No warning issued, but let’s refrain in the future.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I had in mind that there was at least some speculation that Louis Wain–the guy who shows up in abnormal psych textbooks with the cat paintings that go from cuddly to fever dream trippy–was mentally challenged from birth or childhood, long before developing schizophrenia, but a search of wikipedia does not confirm this, and I’ve got to go to work. (Also, I’m not certain if he was considered a great artist, or if his legacy involves illustrations in abnormal psychology textbooks.)
I don’t know how much of a “great” artist he is, but Henry Darger is a major figure in outsider art and has been an influence on mainstream artists. I’m not sure of his IQ however he was a recluse who worked menial jobs most of his life and his work was not displayed until it was discovered after his death. He was likely somewhere on the autism spectrum.
Why would you expect a great artist to be highly intelligent, necessarily?
Intelligence and artistic creativity are two separate things.
I’m not aware of IQ tests or SAT / ACT scores for great artists, but I’m sure they are out there.
Is this a woosh? Just setting aside his musical genius, we have numerous letters he wrote during his travels and they are quite literate. Whether or not he otherwise would have had a high IQ we’ll never know, but there’s no evidence he was stupid. He just liked jokes about poop, dicks, and vaginas. He would have fit in quite nicely on the dope! 
Savant syndrome skills are memory feats. They never involve generating new information. Savants may be able to memorize Shakespeare plays, but unable to compose a Limerick. They can do amazing math in their heads, but none has ever come up with a novel proof or formula. Musical savants can sometimes play tunes from memory they have heard only once, but they don’t compose original tunes.
I took a class in neurochemistry in college where the professor commented that forgetting was a normal function of the brain, and being unable to forget was as much a dysfunction as forgetting too much, even if it was a neat parlor trick.
I remember reading some place that Warhol was pathologically shy as a child, and sometimes came across as stupid, because he was too shy to engage in conversation or answer questions. He overcame it to a great extent, but still found interviews, especially in front of an audience, very difficult. Sometimes his shyness was interpreted as rudeness; other times people assumed he’d shown up to the interview stoned. Some people just thought he was odd.
I read his diary, and the things he chose to record did make him come off as a little OCD, but he may have suspected his diary would be published some day (it was, posthumously), and he may have been posturing when he wrote it. It’s hard to know what to think about someone with a carefully constructed public persona. He may have benefited from Prozac, but I doubt he was retarded. For one thing, his art, whatever you think of it, was quite original.
Right. If you read Mozat’s letters (and there were a lot of them…he was a big correspondent, especially to his sister), they don’t read as written by a stupid person. They tend to be really chatty and gossipy, and mixed in with that are concerns about his work…problems he’s having with staging an opera, revisions he has to make, parts he’s not happy about, parts that weren’t well received and that he’s being pressured to change.
Here are three short letters he wrote to, I think, his father, when Mozart was in Munich working on the opera Odomeneo. They don’t come across as “dumb” to me:
I came in here to mention Darger. “Great artist” is a loaded term (especially in a case like Darger where it is extremely difficult to seperate the art and the artist), but I think it’s hard to deny how visually striking some of his work can be.
True, but until very recently, being considered a great artist required the ability to function socially, negotiate a decent contract, manage a team… that’s not something a person who’s “on the slow side” or “socially challenged” will be able to do by himself.