???Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Is that a lampooning of my idea, a joke, both, neither...whaaaa??? :)
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???Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Is that a lampooning of my idea, a joke, both, neither...whaaaa??? :)
My picks, just personal choice here:
Best Epic Poem of All-Time? The Odyssey
Best Sonnet of All-Time? Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
Best Other Poem of All-Time? At present, I am a great fan of Dylan Thomas’ ‘The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower’.
Best Short Story of All-Time? ‘The Tell-tale Heart’ by Edgar Allen Poe
Best Novella of All-Time? ‘Siddharta’ by Herman Hesse...though if someone tells me it’s not a novella but a novel, well, then Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’.
Best Serial of All-Time? ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson (It originally was serialized in the children’s magazine ‘Young Folks’), or ‘Crime and Punishment’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky (since it was published in 12 installments in a Russian literary magazine).
Best Comedic Play of All-Time? ‘Waiting for Godot’ by Samuel Beckett. Yes, it’s bitter painful humour, but I still think of this as comedy. I like the comedy more in Shakespeare’s tragedies than his comedies, so won’t put Shakespeare down here.
Best Dramatic Play of All-Time? ‘King Lear’ by William Shakespeare
Best Comedic Novel of All-Time? Torn between ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut and ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ by Mark Twain.
Best Dramatic Novel of All-Time? It’s so hard to answer this, but I’ll go with ‘The Glass-Bead Game’ by Hermann Hesse.
Hmm Macbeth, your objection to the term genius appears to be one not to the genius itself but to the word symbol of genius. Personally I have never associated genius with the connotation of an unsurpassable mind, if anything I believe it inspires. When men call Shakespeare a genius, it inspires future and present writers to equal and better him.
As for your second remark, here is my opinion. In Italian schools, dante is done in high school, in england, Shakespeare. I personally believe those two works should not be done in high school but saved for university. Both of them are of such a vast an intricate complexity that a student in high school while he may appreciate it, shall undoubtedly stubble to truly understand it, and this indeed puts most of literature.
Yes... I don't understand your denial of genius thing at all. It would seem that you are afraid of establishing the notion of an artist of unsurpassable brilliance, but the alternative sets up a false notion that if any individual were to simply work hard enough he or she too could write something to rival Shakespeare, compose something to equal Mozart, or paint something to surpass Rembrandt. The reality is that this is not true. I'm not saying that Shakespeare or Mozart or Rembrandt will never again be rivaled or surpassed... but rather that this will necessarily be achieved by a individual who is also a genius.
It is but wishful thinking to assume that some individuals are not more intelligent than others... sometimes far more intelligent than others. We would not even think to deny that some individuals are stronger than others, or taller than others, or more agile than others. We know from studies of the human brain by Howard Gardner than there is not a single measure of intelligence but multiple "intelligences" and that what was long denoted as "talent"... outstanding ability in art, music, writing, sports... even in something such as a game like chess... is not merely an innate "talent" but rather the result of a different and superior ability to think in certain ways. In other words, Michael Jordan was not simply better fit physically than his opponents in basketball (indeed he wasn't particularly larger or faster than the majority of players in the NBA). Nor was it simply the result of effort. He didn't necessarily work or practice harder than everyone else. Rather than attributing this difference to "talent," Gardner's studies on the brain recognized that he simply able to out-think most of his opponents... to visualize occurrences well ahead of what other players might be able to do... just as the average NBA player can certainly out-think or visualize well beyond the average individual, or the chess master can visualize moves in chess far beyond the average chess player.
Will Shakespeare or Michelangelo be surpassed? For such to happen it will demand a confluence of circumstances. Shakespeare and Michelangelo were admittedly both in the right place at the right time. Michelangelo was the man with the abilities needed by an ambitious Pope who wished to re-establish the cultural, political, and religious superiority of Rome. The commissions for the Sistine frescoes took Michelangelo from being just one of many brilliant artists of the era to an entire new level. Shakespeare, in a like manner, was in the right place at the right time. He came to the burgeoning London at the time when the English language was bursting with ambition and possibilities. He entered the theater which was barely out of its nascent state and equally open to possibilities. We have to wonder what his status might have been had he been limited to the lyrical poem (as the majority of the aristocratic poets were) or come upon London under Protestant control with the closing of the theaters.
In other words. There will be new writers to rival Shakespeare, painters to rival Michelangelo, and composers to rival Mozart... but this will demand the lucky confluence of events: an individual of incredible abilities within a certain field of endeavors... a genius... in the right place at the right time: given the proper patronage and support, driven to surpass himself or herself.
Don't forget that Michelangelo was raised from childhood to be an artist by the Medici's in the Renaissance city of Florence. There aren't a lot of late bloomers in the top spots. Most of the greats have their "confluence of circumstances" rather early and every subsequent event adds to that early advantage, snowballing the innate advantages. Malcolm Gladwell writes very insightfully about this subject in his book Outliers.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Alexander III, I most certainly do believe the term "genius" is associated with a notion of someone being "gifted" or having "natural talent," and as I said, I do not at all agree with that assessment.
stlukesguild, while I agree that it is not simply a matter of effort to attempt to surpass the giants of the various fields, Shakespeare and Mozart and the rest, I disagree strongly with the notion that ONLY those "gifted" by different aspects of their inherited genes, or likewise that only a genius can surpass a genius, in the sense that we take "genius" to be an inherited state.
There are various rumors and stories of Mozart acting his age, namely childish, albeit innocently childish at times (he WAS rather young, after all.)
Consider, for a moment, if Mozart had been raised in an environment that somehow stifled any "genius" we might suppose him to have, as much as I disagree with that idea. Mozart's family, say, lives in the gutter, and Mozart never sees a violin in his life, let alone sheet music.
NOW let us take a look at the brilliant composer Ludwig Giacomo Pytor Sullivan.
Ludwig Pytor Giacomo Sullivan does NOT possessn that quality or qualities we here attribute to the makeup of an innate sense of genius. He comes from a simple family, say, a family of barbers. His family isn't in the gutter, but by no menas rich, and all they have in the wasy of musical instruments is that old piano that they've had for generations in their oh-so-very-old house. Now, Ludwig Giacomo Pytor Sullivan is a pretty mischevious person, and has a love of storytelling, his father telling him fanciful stories as a boy each night before tucking him to bed.
Ludwig Giacomo Pytor Sullivan, then, sneaks in the theatres and opera houses as a boy, being as mischevious as he is and having a love for the stories and atmosphere, not to mention the rush most children get from doing something they're not supposed to do.
One night he sees The Marriage of Figaro, the play, by Peter Beaumarchais.
The very next day his father receives a letter that great-uncle Wolfgang has just died and he and his family inherit an unseemly-amount of money, and within a year young Ludwig Giacomo Pytor Sullivan is off at a musical academy, and supplements his existing piano-playing talents and imagination with a knowledge of the rest of musical instruments, theory, and the like, but retains his own, unique technique that he has harnesses and honed through years of piano playing and his own personality.
So it should come as no surprise to you that Ludwig Giacomo Pytor Sullivan, in fact, writes an operatic version of The Marriage of Figaro, many more works, and as such his name (all four of them) becomes synonymous with musical brilliance, even musical genius down through the ages...and a young Mr. Beethoven hears his work and gets his own ideas about music...and many years later an Oscar-winning film called "Giacomo" is released and is a smash.
And all the while Mozart dies in near annonymity.
Yes, that IS a rather fantastical case of cause and effect (one worthy of one of Mozart or Shakespeare's comedic plays or pieces, perhaps) but this does not seem to weaken the point I am attempting to make as it can, and generally will, be argued that the occurance of genius itself is a fantastical case--if everyone was a genius, no one would be, after all, it is, whether innate, acquired, or otherwise, a relative term.
A person CAN, through extraordinary will and just a little bit of luck, surpass those that are given gifts...if Mozart had lived in 5000 B.C., we would not know his name. If he lived today, most likely, we would not know his name.
Any innate talent is nearly entirely dependent in its worth upon both the situation the talented party finds himself in and the actions and of the talented party and those around him.
If Shakespeare never sees or comes to know of Kyd, we likely don't get Hamlet.
If Shakespeare never writes Hamlet, Stoppard never writes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
If Stoppard never writes that...who knows yet?
Again, as I said before, as much as I don't grant the case or status of innate genius (and that statement is not to be confused with one stating that I don't agree with the gene pool perhaps dealing a rather favorable hand to Shakespeare and Mozart and to others) even if I WERE to do so, I STILL would be forced to conclude that it is still so very dependent upon the whats, wheres, and whens the "gifted" party might encounter, and how then and the others about them reacted...
Shakespeare might be holding an Ace and Ten of Clubs...and we might say that that's a decent starting hand, surely better than a Three of Hearts and Six of Diamonds?
But suppose the following cards, instead of being the Jack-Queen-King of Clubs we "know" to have happened, and hence we "have" Shakespeare, came up a pair of Threes and two Sixes?
A Full House, Shakespeare doesn't get the hand he needed and folds...
And Billy Shackspore instead writes "Hamnet," "Otello," "McBee," "King Claudius," "A Hard Summer's Day's Night," "Much To Do About Something," "The Florentine Fleecer," and "The Crucible." (FAR before it's time, that last one...)
Genius is at best a good starting hand in game's poker game, and at worst is a gross mistake.
Lord MacBeth... drinking a bit much before the last post...? You are certainly rambling rather incoherently. But let's simply address the central argument you make:
A person CAN, through extraordinary will and just a little bit of luck, surpass those that are given gifts...
Examples, please. Where do we find the plodding, dutiful worker surpassing the genius? Certainly the highly motivated and ambitious individual of some talent will ultimately surpass the genius who has never had the right breaks, the right connections, etc... but to what extent? I'm going to assume that there is a level of genius involved in nearly all of the artists who achieved something of true brilliance and lasting merit. But again... just as there are very clear differences between the abilities of the professional and the amateur basketball player... there are differences between the artist of genius and the dutiful duffer... and differences between the artists of the highest abilities (Bach, Mozart, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton...) and artists of lesser genius (Herrick, Chopin, Ravel, Delacroix, Vivaldi, Bellini, Verlaine, etc...)
Let's take J.S. Bach... a towering musical genius that makes Mozart look like a mere slacker. Now certainly Bach had some advantages over many in that most of his family had been musicians for generations... But unlike Handel he's never afforded years living in Italy (the then capitol of music). He never hooks up with the sort of patrons that can get him the really enviable positions at royal courts. He's never had the access to the best musicians and performers of the time. He's not given direct exposure to the other leading composers of his era as he might have gotten in a great urban center. He's never had a patron of real ambition that pushed him into something truly grandiose... hell, he never is even afforded a chance to try his hand at opera (one of the greatest losses in music). Instead, he's stuck laboring away at small courts and later in the position of kapellmeister... laboring away and churning out endless works for the enlightenment of dutiful bourgeois as they attend church... to be performed by less than brilliant local musicians, and to be criticized on a frequent basis by his less than musically astute employers. During his life-time, Handel, Vivaldi, Biber, Rameau, Hasse, and any number of other composers are far more known. Immediately after his death his music is almost forgotten... out of fashion. And still his achievements dwarf those of composers with far greater connections, fame, wealth, etc...
William Blake, Schubert, Schumann, Baudelaire, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Vermeer... and we can name any number of other artists in any genre all struggled with poverty and a lack of recognition for much of their lives... and yet...? An even far greater number of artists in every genre began their careers from rather humble backgrounds and struggled for some time before attaining any recognition (Monet, Picasso, Rubens, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Cervantes, Wagner, Beethoven, etc...).
Now I will not argue Edison's aphorism that "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration"... but I will suggest that that "one percent" may be absolutely crucial... and at times the other 99% is useless without it. None of the artists I have named were slackers... contemplating their navels and waiting for inspiration to strike. They continued to push themselves... even lacking patrons or an audience. Of course the reality is that no "genius" has ever achieved something of merit at the highest level without putting forth the greatest effort... without the drive and ambition.
What I might suggest, however, is that there is something to the notion of the genius "failing" in life... failing to achieve what is suggested by his or her potential... as a result of not being in the right place... And this would seem to demand a certain self-recognition... a knowledge of where one's greatest abilities lie. One of the greatest challenges is for the individual to discover where their "genius" truly lies. Of course, it would seem in most instances (or at least in those instances in which the individual achieved something a great merit), there is an interweaving of passion and obsession, with the ability or "genius". But there are those who also struggle to find themselves...
If we take an artist like Cezanne... in all reality he was a duffer in comparison to most. His drawing abilities are mediocre at best. He was not exactly intellectually brilliant. He was socially rather crude and stunted (his childhood friend, Zola, was embarrassed by him to the point of writing a less-than-veiled caricature of Cezanne in his novel, The Masterpiece.) A facile technician such as John Singer Sargent or Bouguereau could paint circles around Cezanne... and yet Cezanne's achievements far outstrip those of either artist as he eventually discovers his real strengths... removed from any outside influences, isolated in the South of France... able to spend endless hours... days... months... even years working and reworking a single painting.
Again... you put forth the notion of the rather mundane... perhaps slightly clever and witty individual who through a tenacious drive and ambition... and a few lucky breaks... surpasses the achievements of the "genius". It would seem an attractive myth... suggesting that anyone might surpass Shakespeare if only he or she worked hard and caught a few breaks. Somehow, however, I remain unconvinced.:sosp:
His sheer output would be hard for Mozart to match, since he lived almost twice as long.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I guess both Beethoven and Picasso did toil in obscurity for a number of years, seeing as they were both child prodigies and didn't achieve any real fame until their mid to late twenties.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
As I just GAVE an example of the un-gifted worker surpassing the genius in the case of Ludwig Giacomo Pytor Sullivan and Mozart, I'll wait until you adress THAT example before reading the rest of that...
But in the meantime, and just on the side, let me pose a different outlook...call it Point #3 in my argument:
If we take Bundle Theory in philosophy to the extreme and say that WE are nothing but properties we would seem to come to the conclusion that we do not exist, but rather the various properties that "make us up" exist and jsut so happen to be arranged in a manner that gives the sense that we exist as a distinct and special entity when, in fact, we are nothing more than properties to be given and taken away, with no self--constructed, innate, or otherwis--then we would seem to be at a roadblock, a dead-end in our search for meaning and ethical nature and all of the rest that we might say makes up the human experience...after all, if it's not "the human experience," with something that makes us distinctly human--be that a Platonic Form's ideal of a human being, a soul, Difference via Personality, anything--but rather mere properties...ALL further lines of reasoning are rendered moot.
Is that conclusion a logical one?
It could be, it depends on how far you're willing to take Bundle Theory and Materialism.
SHOULD we accept that conclusion?
I'd argue no, for it'd seem that either we then live an existentialist lie of sorts, creating our own idea of what's truth and what's beauty (drive-by Keats reference) and live in our own menagerie of illusion...or else accept an argument that seems to render our being and any further exploration of our being moot and, more than meaningless, never having any substance, as WE wouldn't exist, but, rather, the features of us would, and that is all. Accept the latter and there is nothing further to human experience; hence the latter, even if it is potentially a falsehood, is preferable.
What on earth is the reason for my seemingly--ridiculous example?
If we accept YOUR notion of "only a genius may ever equal or surpass the doings of a genius" then we seem to be left with a sililar dilemma from an artistic point of view:
I'M not a genius, adn I would suppose you are not...
Would it then be futile of us to ever wish to write? According to you, if we're not natural geniuses we could never DREAM of approaching Shakespeare or Dante or Homer and all the rest...so what's the point? Why tell a story if you know it can never be as important as another's? Isn't part of the reason we value Shakespeare's writings, genius or no, even today because they seem to pertain to us, to the human condition and experience like no other writer? He's called The Greatest Writer of All-Time for that reason; beyond the aesthetic, or his plays and sonnets' value within systems of literary theory and merit, we value the Bard because he has an uncanny ability to...
"Hold as 't were, the mirror up to nature."
THAT is what the value of his "genius," his works are, not merely for entertainment, but that his works can, more than any others--or at least more than any of our "non-genius" attempts--divine and peer into the human heart, mind, and soul, and come out the other side with truths and ideals that strike so very much at our core.
The same goes for Dante and Homer.
And Mozart and Beethoven in music.
So if he can find truths far greater and far more vividly than I ever can...why should I, a non-genius, eve look?
Why should I ever write?
If I accept your idea of genius, sir, any attempts on my part, on nearly all of mankind's part to find our place, to compose, to write, to act, to be...
All if that is futile, for the impassioned leader can never quite measure up to a Casear, the person who heeds Neitzsche's advice and treates writing as a craft and works and works, writes and writes, feels and feels to try and hone their skilss--they can never be as good as Shakespeare. And any future musician can never compose works to rival Mozart if he is not blessed with some gift.
Genetics are the beginning of the story--workmanship, experience, and effort is the end of it, the difference between those with MISSED potential and those who OVERachieve.
For man to grow, he cannot accept what has already beeen accomplished as "The Finest Achievement of Man" in that field.
For man, the greatest works are ALWAYS to be written tomorrow...or at least that is how we should look at things, I would argue, if our own works, if the great works of the pats, if ANY works are to hold any meaning.
Meh, there is something to be said of circumstance, but at the same time, I read certain works, and think, one in a billion chance of ever coming into creation - the work is just pure brilliant than the conditions required would have needed a capacity for such an understanding of the world. Sure much was also needed, but the original seed seems relevant. Circumstance still requires a mind able to absorb things.
So on the whole, we get a mind with a high IQ, and a rather creative thought pattern - it is possible - and we play the circumstance odds, and out comes a Mozart. Now, that does not get rid of the importance of circumstance, but we still must realize that some people have an aptitude to learn music - a natural sense of it. For instance, there have been examples of children overhearing people play instruments, and then sitting down on a piano and repeating it, without any education - it has happened. How do we understand that if not to say there is a natural talent required? Sure much can be practiced and learned, but the capacity, for at least some things, must be there.
Frankly, the discussion is silly... as Genius goes, anyone who achives Shakespeare or Dante merit will be called Genius and then it will be true that only genius can surpass genius...
Now I scowl at the notion of the hard work... Before Jordan we had Pele, and true, many players can have a Pele's Day and score 5 goals in a single game. Be amazing in a single tournament. Or have a great year. But having a Pele's life? (Which did not stopped Maradona, Beckenbauer, etc to have their own life).
And no, saying Dante is a genius does not means only his work matters. Neither that people will only be happy if works surpass the comedy. There is something named Ambition that moves the imagination of some artistis who set up exactly to beat down those limits. Joyce, Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Tolstoy, Proust are as much genial as ambitious. We do have several relevant works that are not that Genial. Dumas for example (which didnt had even the 99% of Edison hard work, which by the way, is when Edison had his Homer Simpson day, as putting into maths proportion an argument like this) or Bram Stoker Dracula.
As the example you gave, I am sorry. I think you wrote a fable.
I guess both Beethoven and Picasso did toil in obscurity for a number of years, seeing as they were both child prodigies and didn't achieve any real fame until their mid to late twenties.
Ummm... I suppose fame has its worth... but I rather think it is somewhat lacking when accompanied by continued poverty or financial uncertainty.
Picasso lived in abject poverty during most of his early years... through what is generally known as the Blue and Rose periods. He met with the Steins (Gertrude and her brother) who began to purchase some of his work at this time... still he was far from successful well into the analytical cubist years. The style was not exactly highly popular immediately. One of Picasso's early collectors, Dr. Barnes, wanted nothing to do with cubism. It isn't really until after WWI that Picasso hooks up with Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina and daughter of a Russian general, that the artist was introduced to many individuals in high society and became truly successful as an artist (this would put him around age 40). The clash between Picasso's bohemian background and habits and Olga's social aspirations would eventually lead to the demise of their marriage.
Beethoven was successful (by the standards of the average musician of the time) as a virtuoso pianist... but his hearing loss, beginning in his late 20's/early 30's effectively ended this venue of income. For most of his earlier career he depended upon the patronage of various aristocratic figures, including Prince Joseph Franz Lobkowitz, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, Count Ferdinand von Waldstein, and most importantly Archduke Rudolph. He was rejected for a position at the royal theater and most courts due to his known irascible manners. He made some money from teaching and some from the publication of his music, but at a time when copyright laws were unheard of, publication was no great source of income. His income fell off drastically during the Napoleonic wars. Beethoven was able to survive upon his music alone, but he was never really without financial worries until his final years when the The Philharmonic Society of London offered a more-than-generous commission for a symphony and string quartets. Beethoven never attained the financial security and success such as that achieved by Rossini, Donizetti, Wagner, etc...
I'm just saying that when you are a composer to royalty, Mozart, Haydn, and Salieri are your tutors, and people recognize you as a leading talent of your generation you are no longer struggling in obscurity. If you are saying that he wasn't financially secure, then who is? Mark Twain and Balzac made and lost several fortunes over their storied careers. Most artists don't make very good businessmen.
As I just GAVE an example of the un-gifted worker surpassing the genius in the case of Ludwig Giacomo Pytor Sullivan and Mozart, I'll wait until you address THAT example before reading the rest of that...
Ummm... you gave an invented personae with an invented narrative as an example of the individual of middling or limited ability rising to the level of genius achievement. And this is proof of your theorem?
Your philosophical arguments are merely mental Onanism and in no way address the very concrete scientific studies of the human brain and multiple intelligences.
If we accept YOUR notion of "only a genius may ever equal or surpass the doings of a genius" then we seem to be left with a similar dilemma from an artistic point of view:
I'M not a genius, adn I would suppose you are not...
This presumes that we know who doesn't have a given "genius" before the fact. Now what if we take Einstein. At age 5 he had speech problems. At the Luitpold Gymnasium (the equivalent of high-school) he had difficulties with the authorities and resented the school's regimen and teaching methods. He dropped out in 1895. Einstein applied directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule in Zürich, Switzerland, but failed the entrance examination. He finished secondary school in Aarau and then entered a four year program in math and physics at the Polytechnic in Zurich. After graduating, Einstein spent almost two frustrating years in an unsuccessful search for a teaching post. Eventually he took a job in Bern as an assistant examiner at the Patent Office. He was repeatedly passed over for promotion.
Now from this biography, one would have little reason to presume that Einstein was the genius who would shake the foundations of the scientific community a few years later with his publication of his four groundbreaking papers... including the one on relativity.
By the same token, almost no one living in London in 1820 would have recognized William Blake as anything more than a struggling printmaker and an eccentric crank... certainly not an artistic and literary genius. No one living in Delft in 1630 would have even known Vermeer except perhaps as the owner of a bed and breakfast and manager of his mother-in-law's rental properties. An artistic genius? This would not be recognized until the late 19th century.
In other words... I have little knowledge whether you have a genius for writing that has yet to be realized... or recognized... and you have no idea whether I have a genius for painting that has yet to be known.
Some geniuses are clearly towering figures in their own lifetime: Dante, Goethe, Michelangelo, Rubens, Leonardo, Picasso, Wagner, Victor Hugo, Tolstoy, Handel... others may be seen as "respectable" or even unknown... or struggling... until they are recognized years later: Schubert, Bach, Baudelaire, William Blake, Rembrandt, John Donne... even Shakespeare.
Would it then be futile of us to ever wish to write? According to you, if we're not natural geniuses we could never DREAM of approaching Shakespeare or Dante or Homer and all the rest...so what's the point?
Because most artists are not creating with the notion that they are in a competition where the aim is number one... or nothing. Artists create because they have a passion for creating... be it is art. music, poetry... or whatever. Most recognize that the truly towering figures in art are rare. Not everyone can be a Michelangelo or Leonardo or Rembrandt or Rubens... but that does not mean that Bonnard:
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or Vuillard:
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or even a relative unknown, like the American Impressionist, Daniel Garber:
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... are without merit... or even a degree of genius. Indeed, they all may be seen to have brought something to painting that Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Picasso did not.
And there is that rare occasion when then "lesser" genius will produce that single work of unquestioned genius:
Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi-
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Leoncavallo's Pagliacci or Lawrence Sterne's Tristam Shandy.
You might also need to consider Samuel Johnson's proclamation "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." While it may be an exaggeration... it would seem absurd that the artist should not continue to paint simply because he realizes he may never rival Michelangelo... especially if he or she is able to make a living doing what he or she loves. I doubt that J.K. Rowling ever considered abandoning writing simply because it was clear she could not equal Dante or Homer. Again... it would seem you are presuming that the purpose of art... or the reason one makes art... is simply to engage in a competition.
By the way... I'm currently listening to the delicate lute work of Sylvius Leopold Weiss. He is no Bach, Mozart, Beethoven... but he achieved something quite special with his own unique genius:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzM3p...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJBIS...eature=related