Debunking the Muse Myth, or Muse Schmuse.

Why is it that only male artists seem to talk about muses? All those European painters with their muses, even Uma to Quentin and Nicole to Baz. I've said before Baz needs a New Muse.

I'm calling these artists on their Muse Use. I reckon for most of them, it's just a euphemism for "mistress." You have to admit, it's a very convenient way of explaining the urge to have sex with your portrait model, photographic model, paint-mixer.

I have more respect for a bastard, such as Hemingway who has been described thusly, who might be serially monogamous and married - (with a little cross-over) - than someone who even talks about a muse.

I tell you. I'm creative, and I don't need a muse. My muse is the creative urge itself. I don't need someone good looking to sit near me to help my "flow."

What got me started on this was my mother told me the other day about a Nolan doco she'd watched. It revealed how Sidney was pissed off that Sunday Reed didn't run away with him and leave her husband. He went to Queensland to paint, and left his muse behind. But as mum said, "he had lots of other women."

Sidney Nolan was never short of a wife, it seemed. What makes people like this seemingly absolved of having to adhere to the same standards of decency as the rest of us? Their genius? I wonder if they are excused when they are men because we tend to think "oh, that's what men do." But if it had been a woman who'd left her first husband, a little baby, to go to Heide and paint and be an artist and fall in with bohemians, I don't think that woman would have become a national treasure the way he was.

Sub. I am very keen to hear your ideas on all this.

And what other Muse-Astist couplings are there today and in history? Why don't I feel the need for a Muse?