Looking at the current crop of artists, you would say the myth of suffering artists is over - look, for example at Damien Hirst, and all the installataion artists of his type. Look for example, at bad writers like Chetan Bhagat, who never had to face hard times, like Chekhov and Robert Louis Stevenson (both suffered from Tuberculosis) or Harry Crews (who died recently).

Or, it that great art comes out of suffering - sometimes put on willingly, as Thoreau did, living alone and then coming out with something like "Walden"?

Read about the myth of suffering artists here