The artist seclusion: a curse or a remedy?

Obviously, in most cases (and I speak from own experience here) it is a sheer necessity, nothing less. But that one fact alone does hardly answer the question, does it? Over the years I’ve witnessed time and again how all kinds of art people, creatives of whatever medium or standing, chose to shut themselves off from the outside world. At times in order to concentrate on their work, at others to recharge, or to revitalize their flagging spirits. Be it musicians, writers, or the fine arts individual, even team-working people can display astonishingly fierce outbreaks of autistic behaviour. Is it for better or worse, I wonder? Does it help in fighting off our demons, or does such introspection only serve to exacerbate the turmoil, all that’s confusing within us, fear-laden and irresolvable anyway, conditio humana? Is it not that these fits account for some if not most of that aloofness and detachment we observe in so much of contemporary art?
The travails of self-expression that precede and trigger all art are both, elucidating and incomplete; they should never be tempered with. What we have come to understand of L’art dégagé, does it not suggest that such concept is nothing but a gross self-contradiction? So much so in fact, that any attempt at an escape into its assumed safety is the fleeing of life itself? At the end of the day, there is no redemption, only a consciousness and maybe memory to answer to. And that alone can easily consume a lifetime.
Like Don DeLillo rightfully said: the artist, certainly the writer, has their life on the fringes; it can’t be otherwise. But we are all social beings nonetheless and bear a special, a very real and pressing responsibility to our embedding on whatever scale.
I’m not sure about any of this, after all I too feel the urge to cut myself away from all outside interference, the world at large, every so often – but always appreciate what good advice or open remark comes my way. For it is a dialogue, still.

(pic©http://voyages.nicolas.delerue.org)