Personality Characteristics of Successful Artists

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate some personality characteristics of especially successful artists in comparison with those of less successful artists. In a recent study (Götz & Götz, 1979) 257 painters and sculptors had been given the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. From this group four art experts selected the names of 60 well-known artists. Another group of 18 art experts judged the degrees of success of these artists and also their ‘contributions to the development of contemporary art’. Successful artists scored much higher on Psychoticism than the less successful artists. No significant differences between the means on Extraversion, Neuroticism, and the Lie scale were found. Scores for success of the 18 most successful artists were correlated with their corresponding rating of contributions. No significant correlation was found. It was concluded that success in the arts (as defined in this study) may not be synonymous with originality.