Wright or Wrong

I went to Taliesin today.  It's a house Frank Lloyd Wright designed for himself.  You might find it beautiful, you might find it strange, but it's absolutely unique, a new way of thinking about buildings that uses styles and references that are familiar in completely unexpected ways.

But, with hardly any evidence at all, I know the prevailing opinion is that Frank Lloyd Wright was an ass.  He was egotistical, rude, presumptuous, spoiled, self-centered.  He ran through three wives and at least one mistress, he was involved repeatedly in scandal, and there are plenty of reports of his mistreatment of staff.

So...how great does his work have to be to justify the fact that he was a shit?  Can it?  Or does his personality not effect the greatness of his vision?

I can look at his cantilevered shelves, their surfaces drifting along the side of the wall, and think, how beautiful, how magical.  Does my respect fade if I know the person who made them was cruel to his subordinates?  Or does his art earn something beyond approval of morals?

I don't know the answer to this question.  I do not think art gives one a right for bad behavior.  But I know a lot of great art that has been produced by jerks.  Does that lessen its effectiveness?  Or is there something about the uncompromising, self-centered nature of certain people that allows them to ignore the approval of the entire world in order to follow their own artistic path?  After all, doesn't niceness just produce "nice" art?

I think for me, I'm willing to put up with some bad behavior in the pursuit of art that can move me.  But I don't know if I can bring myself to perpetrate the necessary bad behavior to open up my own art.  Too much of my programming is about making other people happy.  But I dream of it, sometimes, the idea of shaking off everyone's expectations, even my own, and doing something extraordinary.  Something unexpected.

It's not an accident that the only "art" I'll let myself stand behind is one where I use the words of others.