Long before Vincent van Gogh died young, poor, and under-appreciated, artists had gotten the message: you have to suffer for your art. But where did this template of the starving artist come from? And is there any truth to it or is it a myth, a romantic misreading of how great art is made?

Here's Vincent van Gogh's "Olive Trees," from 1889, a year before his death, when he was in treatment in St-Rémy in southern France: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/1218/olive-trees-vincent-van-gogh