This evening, I read a review in the Wall Street Journal of a new collection of Van Gogh’s letters that suggests that the painter wasn’t quite the mad genius legend purports him to be. His genius is of course not up for dispute – it’s the mad part that’s up for debate. Yes, the collection argues, he was mentally ill (he was by his contemporaries dubbed “epileptic,” which at the time was a term used to identify a variety of mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder), but his illness wasn’t necessarily tied to the innovation he demonstrated in his work. In fact, the piece says, he didn’t paint or even write during his particularly bad episodes. When his illness was the worst, his creativity disappeared.

That idea surprised me – that Van Gogh’s thickly painted images of flowers and the French countryside might not have been painted in fits of mad passion completely contradicted every idea I had about the artist. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was a little disappointed...but why? Why would the suggestion that he wasn’t gesticulating furiously as he painted, driven only by his obsession to create, disappoint me?

The answer, it seems to me, is that we prefer our great geniuses a little crazy. Think about it: why do we like to think of Michelangelo isolated in his anger as he painted the Sistine Chapel, or of Caravaggio agonizing as he painted his own face into yet another scene of violence – despite any evidence we have to the contrary? Because, quite simply, we seem to prefer our brilliant minds to be mad.

Why is that? Does it make our own inability or mediocrity seem more digestible? “Sure, I’d love to be that good at something, but not if it means being miserable and nuts?” I’d rather not be so cynical about it. Instead, what if it’s the only way we can explain such spurts of brilliance? We want to experience and understand real creativity, but when that innovation is so astonishing, it surpasses our comprehension. So when the possibility of madness presents itself, maybe we cling to it; it allows us to enjoy the brilliance of the work without really understanding it.

Sure, the stories can be a lot more fun than the lives of the more “mundane” geniuses. Think about it: we know that Raphael and Vermeer were great, but are there any stories from their lives that stick with you? Unless you’ve got a degree in art history, probably not. The fact is that through the lens of years, the more drama and the more scandal, the better.

But sometimes we need to let ourselves just enjoy the genius, without trying to find an explanation for it. The layering of shape and color on canvas was the work of another person, and who ultimately really cares how that brilliance originated? In a museum, we can enjoy the touch of the artist’s hand to the original work, and through a custom oil painting reproduction, we can enjoy both the original artist’s creative choices and the reproduction artist’s technical skill. In both formats, we can be inspired by humanity’s capacity to create beauty. And really, when that’s the case, and years have gone by, what does it matter if our geniuses are mad or not?