Francois Villon apparently killed a priest, but accounts differ on the circumstances. It may have been self defense. Villon was one of the most famous French poets of the Middle Ages, best remembered for the line Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan? translated as “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”
Johnny Cash “shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”. Does that count?
What happened to Nancy is debatable aside from the “she died” part
And sid was not actually a professional musician, didn’t know how to play guitar, so i guess he is off the hook 2 ways?
That would exclude anybody who happened to be born into the upper classes.
So go to CS and start a thread about general creative types committing general crimes for general reasons.
As long as we’re here in GQ and the OP asked if a very specific claim is true or not, answer it with specifics because the thread’s posters’ ramblings about other subjects tell me jack about generally everything.
I’d exclude anyone who wasn’t primarily engaged in the mentioned activities, and who wasn’t best known for that.
Muybridge sure sounds to me like he meets every particular. The first noun used to describe him in his Wikipedia article is “photographer”, and even if we narrow “artist” to mean only “visual artist”, then that still includes photography. And traveling to another city with a gun to find one’s target, and then to introduce oneself to him by shooting him in the face, meets any reasonable definition of premeditation.
jayjay answered the question in post #2. John Wayne Gacy was a painter, who carried out premeditated murders.
The argument that we’re only talking about artists who supported themselves through art gets back to the “no true Scotsman” thing.
I mean, Van Gogh never supported himself through art, which I suppose is why his paintings don’t hang in museums. Thomas Kincade’s paintings are trash, therefore we can discount him as an artist.
I will stipulate that neither Kincade nor Van Gogh ever murdered anyone…as far as we know.
The claim wasn’t that no one who has done paintings hasn’t committed murder, but that no “artist” has. I wouldn’t consider Gacy an actual artist. If you count kindergarten, pretty much everyone has done some painting, even if it was just finger paints. It’s obvious that Colin Wilson’s claim was based on his ideas about people with actual artistic abilities, not simply artistic pretensions. Now you can quibble about who’s an artist and who isn’t, but Gacy is clearly not the kind of person Wilson would have had in mind.
It would have been helpful if the OP had been clearer about the point that Wilson was trying to make. But yes, people have been expanding the definition well beyond what Wilson evidently meant.
My sense is that “the kind of person Wilson would have had in mind” is entirely dependent on the respondent, and perhaps Wilson himself was clearer. Perhaps someone who has read the book will enlighten us on Wilson’s intent and expand upon the context.
However, you’re the one who made the point that we should only be considering artists who made it their profession. If 2017 Van Gogh lived next door to you, I suggest that far from someone who made a profession out of art, you would consider him a ne’er-do-well with fantasies of being an artist–just as you would dismiss neighbor Gacy.
I’m not here to argue for Gacy’s talents or even Van Gogh’s, but I point out again that absent some more rigorous definition from the Wilson book, which we don’t have and I feel under no obligation to search for, the assertion as given is meaningless.
Also, Exapno’s point about Gu Cheng’s murder of his wife occurring “two decades” after is book was published strikes me as no-true-Scotsmanning on an exalted level. What’s the statute of limitations on being a poet?
Varg Vikernes, a Norwegian black metal musician, killed fellow musician Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth. According to Snorre “Blackthorn” Ruch, who drove with Vikernes to Aarseth’s apartment, the murder was planned in advance by Vikernes; the latter, however, claims it was in self-defense.
Do the several murders of the Barrow Gang count as “calculated”? They calculated robberies, planning in advance to kill anyone who got in their way. Even if calculated, Bonnie Parker may not qualify on two grounds: (1) Although she might have been technically an accomplice to a dozen murders or more, it’s widely agreed she never pulled the trigger herself. (2) And her poetry might be considered doggerel:
*…
If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
About the third night
They’re invited to fight
By a sub-gun’s rat-tat-tat.
They don’t think they’re too smart or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
They’ve been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.
Some day they’ll go down together;
They’ll bury them side by side;
To few it’ll be grief–
To the law a relief–
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.*
The problem is that nothing in the OP’s quote suggests that the ‘poets, artists, and composers’ to be considered must be proficient at their craft or instruments, nor that they must professionals who not only earn their living at their craft but are widely known for it. Hence the ‘drift’ in the thread that Exapno mentioned, which in my opinion is entirely appropriate given that nothing in the OP excludes those whose names have been mentioned.
It’s pretty clear that Wilson meant to suggest that artistic people lack the sort of violent mentality that leads to murder, so much so that not a single one has ever committed that crime. This would be extraordinary if true, and carries with it the implication that artistic people are therefore of a mentality superior to that of non-artistic people.
But it’s rare that anyone who’s managed to achieve success and acclaim in any field winds up murdering anyone, so the fact that no successful or well-known poet, artist or composer (apart from John Wilkes Booth, apparently) is known to have murdered anyone is of no real significance, thus IMO there isn’t much to be gained by trying to weed out all those who aren’t known for achieving acclaim or at least a livelihood with their art. And especially so given the overwhelming evidence that many people of an artistic bent have indeed committed murder, and some to a monstrous extent. There’s no telling how many lives would have been spared had Hitler achieved success and acclaim through his paintings, or Manson with his music.
That’s what made him an artist.
And that isn’t even the only murder by a black metal musician.
In 1993, Bård “Faust” Eithun of Emperor killed a man in Lillehammer, Norway, after the man suggested “a walk in the woods” - Eithun, by his own admission, first decided to kill the man and then accepted the offer, which I suppose shows at least some degree of premeditation.
That same year, three members of Absurd killed a classmate in Sondershausen, Germany - not sure how premeditated that one was. They did lure the victim into a secluded area before doing the deed, but I don’t know if murder (as opposed to a thorough beating) was planned from the get-go.
In 1997, Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection helped kill a man in Göteborg, Sweden, after a night on the town. I don’t know all the details, but just the fact that he and his partner-in-crime (who wasn’t a musician) had a gun with them, in a country where such a thing is exceedingly rare, could perhaps be seen to hint towards at least some level of premeditation.
These are all off the top of my head; I’m sure there are more examples.
This reminds me of a “How Stuff Works” podcast on the MPAA where they claim no movie in American history has ever been rated X/NC-17 solely for violence, except you can easily google and find movies like RoboCop and Hard Target that were initially rated X solely for violence.
Speaking of “food technologists” and Colins, Colin Pitchfork was a serial killer (the first to be caught using DNA matching).
He was reportedly an accomplished bakery artist, so he wiggles into that category too.
If you believe Patricia Cornwell (which I don’t), the painter Walter Sickert was actually Jack the Ripper.
Richard Dadd was a professional artist Richard Dadd - Wikipedia - he made his living from drawings and paintings. He murdered his father, though “first-degree” is probably not right, since he was adjudged to be insane.
That still doesn’t work very well for the book’s argument, though: “Artistic people are much more mentally well-adjusted! They’re so well-adjusted that the only reason they’d commit murder is because they’re insane!”
Agreed. Also the percentage of human population that are professional poets, artists or composers is pretty small, so naturally finding people in that category who are also first-degree murderers (another small percentage of the human population) is difficult.