Composers almost equally good in other arts (or professions)

[Chaszz]

More-so even as a liberalizer of divorce laws, cutting the red tape (not just) which allowed for perfectly natural divorces, rather than being protracted year-long procedures, to take place in a matter of seconds. Given a well-trained executor. Changed marriage in one (or more) fell swoop(s).

Henry VIII was also good at torture and promoted many new clever torture implements. At a museum called the London Dungeon one may see many of the devices he commissioned. The variety of different kinds of thumbscrews alone is very impressive. Henry also modified the burning of heretics at the stake to take place not all at once but gradually, burning different areas on the body of his victims over many hours to prolong the agony, until they cried out to have done with it already. A most cruel monarch.

[Chaszz]

Sorry to a bit of a party pooper, but if you do a top five or even a top ten in either music or art you will not find more than one  jack of more than one trade - only Michelangelo. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven not only did no visual art but none are even on record (to my knowledge, anyway) as ever admiring any visual art. The only reference I have seen by a first rank composer to art was some enthusiasm Wagner showed over several Holbein paintings he once saw. Likewise I do not know of any genius of the plastic arts who composed music, though Titian did play viola da gamba in small groups and is shown doing so in a painting by Veronese. Likewise great writers rarely crossed over except for Blake who was also a painter and engraver. Probably the best known example of more than one art among first rank geniuses is Michelangelo who was a poet as well as a sculptor, painter and architect. But it seems that as an artist reaches the real heights, he does not usually divide his talents between two arts. Perhaps Schoenberg is another exception. I am not able to say whether he should be considered a genius or not.

Musicians who are more or less indifferent to plastic art, and artists who sometimes are indifferent to music, as was Picasso, seem to find a common denominator in all loving literature. Literature inspires great artists and composers alike, even if they do not write literature themselves. (An exception is Van Gogh, whose letters to his brother are considered great literature.)

As for other (non-arts) professions, first rank geniuses seem to prefer starvation to dividing their time with any profession other than their art. 

[Josquin des Prez]

http://em.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/4/533.extract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel's_art_collection

Your knowledge is faulty. I reckon the problem of appreciating painting and other arts was a matter of difficulty in exposure, not lack of interest. Handel, who traveled much, and was at one point wealthy enough to collect paintings for himself, is an anomaly.

[Guido]

Ruggles. Very talented painter.
Ives. Incredibly successful insurance salesman - multimillionaire by his retirement in 1929 (though he effectively retired from composing in 1925, due to artistic exhaustion, and not that he ever made any money from it)
Big admirer of Schoenberg's paintings too, though of course he was a much greater composer.

[Xenophanes]

Sally Daley is a tough act to follow, but Alfonso X of Castille, King of the Romans and of the Germans, cousin of Frederick II Hohenstaufen (1221-1284 - Alfonso that is, not Frederick) - nick named "el Sabio" - just might pull it off. Alfonso was an author and a composer as well as a monarch & the restorator of civilisation in Spain (with the collaboration of jewish, muslim & christian scholars), an astronomer, a great law-giver, who imposed the vernacular Castillian as literary language of his kingdom (in lieu of Latin), so as to make learning available to all.

Sally is a fine and versatile musician, as are many church musicians. She does a lot of composition, as does Michael Capon, another excellent church musician of my acquaintance.

http://www.michaelcapon.webs.com/

Somehow I had forgotten about the Swedish composer, Franz Berwald (1796-1868).  Aside from being a composer he was an orchestral musician (violinist), started an orthopaedic clinic (also invented some orthopaedic devices), and later managed a glass factory and a sawmill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Berwald

[Chaszz]

http://em.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/4/533.extract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel's_art_collection

Your knowledge is faulty. I reckon the problem of appreciating painting and other arts was a matter of difficulty in exposure, not lack of interest. Handel, who traveled much, and was at one point wealthy enough to collect paintings for himself, is an anomaly.

I stand corrected regarding Handel. As for the other first-rate composers, working often in the courts of princes and kings, art must have been on view continually. as these aristocrats would have been exhibiting most of what they had collected out of pride, not hiding it away. Also composers conducted music in resplendent churches which contained much great sculpture, painting and architecture. We do not lack for quotes from these composers on many subjects, so I still maintain the paucity of quotes on art is indicative, as opposed to the many references they made both in their quotes and in their works to literature.  Still, I may be wrong.

[DieNacht]

Education and acceptance in the visual art world were also very much controlled by the Guild and Academy systems, a system that only loosened up in the late 19th century ...

I guess Ciurlionis is the only artist-composer who is really revered for all the facets of his talent, especially in his own country. Whereas Schoenberg also occasionally turns up in art historical context as a figure in visual expressionism (cf. his self portraits especially, of course).

The quality of Ciurlinionis´ works can often be debated, but his tragic destiny, originality and involvement in the national cause (celebrating the Lithuanian landscape and folk culture) made him especially relevant for his fellow countrymen, whereas his involvement in Symbolism did produce some unique results.