A tradition rooted in the mythology of romanticism and its conception of the artist as a cultural hero would want to believe that everything pertaining to the life of a genius has to bear the mark of the sublime. Everytb-ing in their lives -gestures, decisions, personality traits, eccentricities, even the most dissonant mistakes- are thus transformed into esthetic substance. We would want their lives to be masterworks, a perfect coherence and con...