# Low intelligence and retardation in great artists, poets, philosophers, etc. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 7, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567 "2014-07-07T19:45:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/21 "2014-07-09T09:04:10Z")
> [@D18](#): > > 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! 😉 Well, you are right… of course I don’t believe that Mozart was literally retarded or had a low IQ. But if we are talking about artistic genius and intelligence, he did show a certain behaviour that would be considered childish or dumb. And let’s not even get into how he kept losing all his money. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/22 "2014-07-09T12:45:57Z")
> [@gracefulfatsheba](#): > > Have there ever been any great artists, poets, philosophers, etc. that are known (or guessed) to have had low intelligence, if not outright retardation? Would Vincent Van Gogh count? Probably he had some form of mental illness. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/23 "2014-07-09T13:14:10Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Savant syndrome skills are memory feats. They never involve generating new information. Some savants have remarkable memories, but by no means all savant abilities are memory abilities. From the Wikipedia link I gave before: > [@](#): > > Savant skills (islands of ability) are usually found in one or more of five major areas: art, musical abilities, calendar calculation, mathematics and spatial skills. > [@CatherineZeta](#): > > 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. > > [Henry Darger - Wikipedia](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger) Being on the autism spectrum does not imply low intelligence or retardation. Neither does working in menial jobs all one’s life. Many autistic people are highly intelligent (as are many poor, working people, and recluses, too). ---
**Author:** ![Kamrusepas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@Kamrusepas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamrusepas)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/24 "2014-07-09T18:11:10Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Would Vincent Van Gogh count? Probably he had some form of mental illness. Mental retardation and mental illness are two completely different things. Many great artists were and are mentally ill, so much so that one could argue that art and insanity go hand in hand (not always, of course, so don’t twist my words). Don’t they say that all geniuses are mad? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/25 "2014-07-09T18:21:13Z")
> [@Sr\_Siete](#): > > Well, you are right… of course I don’t believe that Mozart was literally retarded or had a low IQ. But if we are talking about artistic genius and intelligence, he did show a certain behaviour that would be considered childish or dumb. And let’s not even get into how he kept losing all his money. I’m sure there have been a number of great artists with childish or lowbrow sense of humor, and a number of great artists who have been bad with money. Neither of these characteristics is necessarily a sign of low intelligence, however. ---
**Author:** ![sidecar\_jon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@sidecar\_jon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidecar_jon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/26 "2014-07-09T20:35:26Z")
for “mad” id nominate Richard Dadd. Murdered his father and attacked others… But as an artist myself, fame is no mark of “good” artists, its a mark of the right promotion and the right selling techniques. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/27 "2014-07-09T21:08:24Z")
Artists can certainly be psychologically tortured, but re intelligence most art that resonates as meaningful requires some planning and intentionality. A not very bright person might get lucky and produce something once that people regard as interesting or meaningful, but it’s unlikely they can do that consistently if they are not very bright. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/28 "2014-07-09T21:15:34Z")
> [@gracefulfatsheba](#): > > 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. In reading Warhol’s wiki it’s quite obvious that he deliberately crafted a specific persona for public consumption, one that was quite different than the eager young man on the make he evidenced in his youth. He knew exactly what he was doing. > [@](#): > > Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the “bull market” of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. > > By this period, Warhol was being criticized for becoming merely a “business artist”.[40] In 1979, reviewers disliked his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. They also criticized his 1980 exhibit of 10 portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled Jewish Geniuses, which Warhol—who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews—had described in his diary as “They’re going to sell.”[40] In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol’s superficiality and commerciality as “the most brilliant mirror of our times,” contending that “Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s.”[40] > > Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: “I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re so beautiful. Everything’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”[41] ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/29 "2014-07-09T21:30:06Z")
[More here re Warhol](http://www.warholfoundation.org/legacy/biography.html) > [@](#): > > The youngest child of three, Andy was born Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928 in the working-class neighborhood of Oakland, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Stricken at an early age with a rare neurological disorder, the young Andy Warhol found solace and escape in the form of popular celebrity magazines and DC comic books, imagery he would return to years later. Predating the multiple silver wigs and deadpan demeanor of later years, Andy experimented with inventing personae during his college years. He signed greeting cards “André”, and ultimately dropped the “a” from his last name, shortly after moving to New York and following his graduation with a degree in Pictorial Design from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1949. > [@](#): > > Work came quickly to Warhol in New York, a city he made his home and studio for the rest of his life. Within a year of arriving, Warhol garnered top assignments as a commercial artist for a variety of clients including Columbia Records, Glamour magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, NBC, Tiffany & Co., Vogue, and others. He also designed fetching window displays for Bonwit Teller and I. Miller department stores. After establishing himself as an acclaimed graphic artist, Warhol turned to painting and drawing in the 1950s, and in 1952 he had his first solo exhibition at the Hugo Gallery, with Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote. As he matured, his paintings incorporated photo-based techniques he developed as a commercial illustrator. The Museum of Modern Art (among others) took notice, and in 1956 the institution included his work in his first group show. > > The turbulent 1960s ignited an impressive and wildly prolific time in Warhol’s life. It is this period, extending into the early 1970s, which saw the production of many of Warhol’s most iconic works. Building on the emerging movement of Pop Art, wherein artists used everyday consumer objects as subjects, Warhol started painting readily found, mass-produced objects, drawing on his extensive advertising background. When asked about the impulse to paint Campbell’s soup cans, Warhol replied, “I wanted to paint nothing. I was looking for something that was the essence of nothing, and that was it”. The humble soup cans would soon take their place among the Marilyn Monroes, Dollar Signs, Disasters, and Coca Cola Bottles as essential, exemplary works of contemporary art. ---
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/30 "2014-07-10T20:38:04Z")
a bit of googling revealed many results for famous artists “intellectual disability”\*. Replacing “intellectual” with “developmental” produces a similar number of results. Here are some famous names from one of the sites\*\* found: [ul] [li]Walt Disney[/li][li]Thomas Jefferson\*\*\*[/li][li]Louis Pasteur \*\*\*[/li][li]George Bernard Shaw \*\*\*[/li][/ul] - the intellectual (or developmental) disability part needs to be in quotes \*\* The site is dedicated to championing disabled people, so it’s undoubtedly biased \*\*\* These people were merely listed as having a learning disability, not necessarily unusually low intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/31 "2014-07-10T21:52:37Z")
> [@D18](#): > > 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! 😉 Jonathan Swift’s education and erudition are undeniable, but \*\*\*Gulliver’s Travels \*\*\*is still filled with poo poo and pee pee jokes. That type of thing was par for the course in 18th century Europe. Think of how Monty Python combined Elizabethan poetry with porn and dick jokes. Art, like humor, can be simultaneously sophisticated AND puerile. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/32 "2014-07-10T23:53:00Z")
> [@dstarfire](#): > > a bit of googling revealed many results for famous artists “intellectual disability”\*. Replacing “intellectual” with “developmental” produces a similar number of results. > > Here are some famous names from one of the sites\*\* found: > [ul] > [li]Walt Disney[/li][li]Thomas Jefferson\*\*\*[/li][li]Louis Pasteur \*\*\*[/li][li]George Bernard Shaw \*\*\*[/li][/ul] > > - the intellectual (or developmental) disability part needs to be in quotes > \*\* The site is dedicated to championing disabled people, so it’s undoubtedly biased > \*\*\* These people were merely listed as having a learning disability, not necessarily unusually low intelligence. Yeah, but if you click on the links when you google intellectual disability and read them most of them are talking about learning disabilities (in the US meaning of the term, not the UK one): you can have an extremely high IQ and still have a learning disability. And developmental disability is just as bad a search term because that includes conditions like autism and ADHD - both of which are deemed neurodevelopmental disorders in DSM V - which can occur even in people with gifted IQs. Only the unPC term “retarded” is likely to produce results about artists who have low IQs instead of people with milder challenges. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/33 "2014-07-11T16:13:25Z")
Nietzsche had brain-rotting syphilis which, along with the baleful influence of his sister, influenced his later works. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567/34 "2014-07-15T04:52:34Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Jonathan Swift’s education and erudition are undeniable, but \*\*\*Gulliver’s Travels \*\*\*is still filled with poo poo and pee pee jokes. That type of thing was par for the course in 18th century Europe. > > Think of how Monty Python combined Elizabethan poetry with porn and dick jokes. Art, like humor, can be simultaneously sophisticated AND puerile. Well said! It is a little-known fact that highly intelligent people do occasionally read MAD magazine, listen to bubblegum pop music, and play _Angry Birds._ 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/low-intelligence-and-retardation-in-great-artists-poets-philosophers-etc/692567.md?page=1)