How much I liked the portrayal of passion for art doesn't matter that much, when the actual main character was left pretty much in the dark. That may have been the author's intention, but this kind of approach has never appealed to me. The story is way too fragmented to get an idea of Strickland's character, even though I did enjoy it as a whole. I would also like to say that whatever you may think of his decisions, you can never understand unless you have felt that compulsive desire to create. I haven't, but I can still vaguely understand his reasoning. Towards the end there are two brilliant passages, that express my thoughts on life exactly:

I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. -- They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. -- Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.

Is to do what you most want, to live under the conditions that please you, in peace with yourself, to make a hash of life; and is it success to be an eminent surgeon with ten thousand a year and a beautiful wife? I suppose it depends on what meaning you attach to life, the claim which you acknowledge to society, and the claim of the individual.

In order to be happy, you may have to make enormous sacrifices, and possibly hurt other people. But isn't it worth it, if you can feel like you finally have a meaningful life? That you are where your heart belongs?