Why do drugs inspire creativity in the arts?
When we consider our favourite works of art, whether it be a painting, a song, or a film, it wouldn’t a stretch to claim that somewhere down the line, it most likely either produced or conceived of under the influence of mind-expanding drugs. Drugs have had a long history in relation to artist creativity, whether it be as a form of escapism from the pressures of fame or as a means to access buried modes of consciousness through an alteration of the mind’s experience of the present moment.
The use of psychoactive drugs most likely extends as far back as shamanistic cavemen painting on cave walls after ingesting the mysterious mushrooms growing out of animal dung and believing they had seen visions of some supernatural being. However, one of the most prominent instances of drug use in art is probably the relationship between romanticism and opium.
The romantic movement in art and literature began to prioritise the importance of inner subjectivity. So what better way was there for artists to reflect on their thoughts, emotions and beliefs than getting stoned out of their minds and laying horizontal for a few hours? The likes of poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and George Crabbe were all known to lamp up a pipe before delving into a poetic composition.
Flash forward to the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, and we find Pablo Picasso enjoying the drug’s benefits too. He was said to host regular smoking sessions in his Paris apartment with fellow artists and writers Amadeo Modigliani, Juan Gris, Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire. In fact, the paintings from Picasso’s ‘Rose Period’ were said to contain within them the dreamy, trancelike nature of an opium high. Early 20th-century jazz musicians would also enter this trancelike state when taking the strongest form of opiates – heroin.
We can’t, of course, ignore one of the most significant artistic movements in history with a heavy influence on drug use – the countercultural songwriting of the 1960s. From The Beatles to Janis Joplin to the Doors and everyone in between, pretty much every prominent musician of the decade was getting stoned. This led to some of the best music of all time being written, offering songs a sense of political involvement, rebellious freedom and emotional vulnerability.
Graham Nash once noted that using drugs enabled him a sense of freedom when it came to writing songs. “Weed unlocked my mind and my emotions,” he said (via Scientific American), “which had to be awakened for me to start writing meaningfully”. However, he also noted claimed that there was an element of addiction when it came to the Crosby, Stills and Nash writing sessions, even if they were productive. “We were maniacs,” he added. “We smoked a joint and snorted a line before every session – a CSN ritual. It put us in a rapturous mood.”
For Nash’s bandmate, the recently deceased David Crosby, drug use seemed to have a reverse effect in the sense that his desire to use drugs to enhance creativity had been overshadowed by a sense of anxiety at being able to get high. “He’d been more and more drug dependent, slipping into a state he called ‘cocaine psychosis,’ the paranoia that comes with being too high most of the time,” Nash said. “He was so heavily into cocaine that most of Croz’s waking moments were spent figuring out how to score, where and when to get it, how much he had left, and how much to share with his friends.”
So there is an evident difference in terms of the suitability of the kind of drugs that one uses to foster creativity. Weed generally relaxes people and makes music sound better. Playing music feels better when stoned; chord shapes are easier to spot, grooves and rhythm are more comfortable to lock into, and artists are more confident at trying alternative phrasings and techniques.
Cocaine, on the other hand, makes users alert and more confident. The benefit of snorting line after line is that artists can stay well up into the night writing and recording and give vocal takes their all. However, cocaine is far more addictive than weed, and that sense of using it for artistic purposes is often soon replaced by a mere addiction, as David Crosby discovered. In that light, perhaps the use of cocaine ends up more counter-productive than it is worth.
It ought to be pointed out, though, that people are often drawn to creative pursuits because they have some deep emotional trauma within them that can only be expressed through their artistry. In the same vein, those who tend to become addicted to drugs of any kind often do so because of some deep and unresolved personal conflict. So perhaps the two go hand in hand in that light at a rather distinct level.
Still, the fact remains that artists (and particularly musicians) have that penchant for drug use, primarily because it enhances creativity. The Verve were said to be stoned at pretty much every rehearsal and recording session and just listen to the glorious guitar tone of Nick McCabe to see its benefit. In the world of hip-hop, there is a tendency to rely on weed, drank and medicinal opioids to create a calming presence required to lay down bars with rhythmic efficiency and startingly creative lexical freedom.
Drugs have always been a central factor in the creation of art, and they will most likely do so regardless of time or genre. It’s hard to argue against their use, given the beautiful creations that come out of writing sessions. The problem only arises when drugs go from being used as a conduit to access higher forms of creative consciousness and become instead worrying addictions that have claimed the lives of several talented artists throughout history.
