Does Pain Equate To Art?

I hung out with a friend yesterday who shared with me very deep pain about his adolescence. He retold a story about how when he was at a dance, a pretty girl had asked him to dance, and they did, only to be laughed at by his classmates. It was all a set-up. By someone he considered a friend. I recall a similar dance I attended as a middle schooler...and though didn't experience this level taunts, I still felt like an awful outcast.

People think childhood is your formative years. I agree. But adolescence truly shapes who you are, if it means a creative side that comes through. I asked him...if he felt he would be the prolific storyteller today had he not had all that emotional trauma. To my surprise, he admitted that he would prefer it be scaled back by half and he'd still retain the well of ideas to make movies. For a lot of people watching movies is an escape. A constant removal from the drudgery of life. To make movies is to play God. You can have the pretty girl fall for you. OR, can explain how when a girl causes you deep pain, you can go to the core reason as to why. You can shape truth to the masses or re-package it so that someone would not feel so alone.

So does pain equate to great art? Some artist thought so. Van Gogh cut off his ear in an emotional (drunken) plight over a woman. That is some serious emotional pain manifests itself as literally physical pain. Albeit to a prostitute (allegedly). A grand gesture perhaps of lust? Madness. Gotta love his art. Van Gogh committed suicide at 37.

I've not yet met an artist who didn't suffer deeply. A lot of art comes from the questions of life or the reflection of. I'm not saying great art must come from deep pain, but most are as a result of. Nor does it mean you must suffer to create great art. There's plenty of painters who simply do it to pass time. Or learn something new. Art is an expression of our past. A combination of who we more than likely want the public to see us as. Which means art must be shared. And if the pain is surface level and can generate healing, it's all the better.