Inspired madness of the artist

The average man sitting on the Tube, according to Gilbert of Gilbert & George, sees nothing but breasts. Now, that may underestimate the range of interests of the average man (though it is entirely consistent with the stratagems used by mass-circulation newspapers to attract his attention). As for G&G, on the contrary, they find ‘ideas blow up’ in their brains – not very nice ones, some people say. But then, as they are proud to acknowledge, they are ‘mad, crazy artists’.

Artists are not, perhaps, the same as you and I. They make unexpected connections. William Blake remarked that where you might see the sun as a disc, something like a guinea, he saw a host of angels crying holy, holy, holy (so obviously ideas blew up in his mind too). And artists are aware of, and interested in, different things. While the average man is preoccupied with mammary glands, house prices, the time of his next appointment or whatever, an artist may be concerned, for example, with shadows.