Response to Mary Marcil's Response to Me

Mary answered my question, Do you think famous artists produce better or worse work because of the pressures on them to keep being great? She then ended her blog with the question,What is an artist to do once they have reached the peak of their performance and can no longer improve?

I had an amazing dance and theatre teacher in high school, Jim Raposa, who taught me several very important lessons. One of the lessons he taught was that artists can always improve. Always. I have to say, I agree with him.

I'm going to look at this based on each separate field of art. Dance, theatre, visual art, and literature.

DANCE

Even the best dancers can keep learning new moves and perfecting the old ones. They also keep training their bodies and making themselves a little stronger or a little more precise.

THEATRE

There are so many different schools of theatre that there is always something new to learn. In addition, it is always possible to delve deeper into your character and make a stronger connection with the audience.

VISUAL ART

Even Picasso and van Gogh recognized that they had to keep perfecting their technique. In addition, there are perpetually new techniques emerging for artists to experiment with. There are also always new things to paint or draw.

LITERATURE

What do you do when you finish writing a piece of literature? You reread it and improve it where you can. A writer might reword a sentence to make it clearer, or they might alter their storyline. Like visual arts, there is always something new to write about.

My question in response to Mary's question in response to my question is this: Should artists focus more on perfecting one technique or should they focus more on trying several different techniques?