In European (and then American) culture, these or related concepts be traced back at least as far as Giorgio Vasari, an artist and author who wrote The Lives of the Artists, published in 1550 and then in a second edition in 1568. The Lives is a collection of artist biographies, and is thus a very early example of art historical writing (maybe the earliest real art history in the West). Other people wrote about art and artists long before Vasari, but none did so with the same focus entirely on art and artists and the history of art.

Vasari provides a great number of anecdotes in his biographies (although many of them are almost certainly untrue, or at least unverified and unverifiable). Among these anecdotes are stories about artists whose personalities seem to display the traits you mention.

From the biography of Donatello, for example, is the following story [here Donatello is "Donato" in this edition]: "It is said that a Genoese merchant caused Donato to make a lifesize head of bronze, which was very beautiful and also very light, because it had to be carried to a great distance; and that the commission for this work came to him through the recommendation of Cosimo. Now, when the head was finished and the merchant came to pay for it, it appeared to him that Donato was asking too much; wherefore the matter was referred to Cosimo, who had the head carried to the upper court of the palace and placed between the battlements that overlook the street, to the end that it might be seen better. When Cosimo sought to settle the difference, he found the offer of the merchant very far from the demand of Donato, and he turned round and said that it was too little. Whereupon the merchant, thinking it too much, said that Donato had wrought it in a month or little more, and that this meant a gain of more than half a florin a day. Donato, thinking this too much of an insult, turned round in anger and said to the merchant that in the hundredth part of an hour he would have been able to spoil the value of a year's labor; and giving the head a push, he sent it flying straightway into the street below, where it broke into a thousand pieces ; saying to him that this showed that he was more used to bargaining for beans than for statues. Wherefore the merchant, regretting his meanness, offered to give him double the sum if he would make another; but neither his promises nor the entreaties of Cosimo could induce Donato to make it again." (http://members.efn.org/~acd/vite/VasariDon.html)

There are other stories (in Donatello and other artists' lives), but the most famous examples come from the life of Michelangelo (which is also the longest in the books). Vasari, for all he admired Michelangelo, also presents the artist as a "difficult" figure. Some examples:

getting revenge on a critic of his Last Judgment by painting him in Hell: "Michelagnolo had already carried to completion more than three-fourths of the work, when Pope Paul went to see it. And Messer Biagio da Cesena, the master of ceremonies, a person of great propriety, who was in the chapel with the Pope, being asked what he thought of it, said that it was a very disgraceful thing to have made in so honorable a place all those nude figures showing their nakedness so shamelessly, and that it was a work not for the chapel of a Pope, but for a bagnio or tavern. Michelagnolo was displeased at this, and, wishing to revenge himself, as soon as Biagio had departed he portrayed him from life, without having him before his eyes at all, in the figure of Minos with a great serpent twisted round the legs, among a heap of Devils in Hell; nor was Messer Biagio's pleading with the Pope and with Michelagnolo to have it removed of any avail, for it was left there in memory of the occasion, and it is still to be seen at the present day." (http://members.efn.org/~acd/vite/VasariMichelangelo7.html)

breaking apart a statue he had been working on for years (here Vasari also talks about how he was never satisfied with his work): "Michelagnolo used to work almost every day, as a pastime, at that block with the four figures of which we have already spoken; which block he broke into pieces at this time for these reasons, either because it was hard and full of emery, and the chisel often struck sparks from it, or it may have been that the judgment of the man was so great that he was never content with anything that he did. A proof that this is true is that there are few finished statues to be seen out of all that he executed in the prime of his manhood, and that those completely finished were executed by him in his youth, such as the Bacchus, the Pieta in S. Maria della Febbre, the Giant of Florence, and the Christ of the Minerva, which it would not be possible to increase or diminish by as little as a grain of millet without spoiling them; and the others, with the exception of the Dukes Giuliano and Lorenzo, Night, Dawn, and Moses, with the other two, the whole number of these statues not amounting in all to eleven, the others, I say, were all left unfinished, and, moreover, they are many, Michelagnolo having been wont to say that if he had had to satisfy himself in what he did, he would have sent out few, nay, not one. For he had gone so far with his art and judgment, that, when he had laid bare a figure and had perceived in it the slightest degree of error, he would set it aside and run to lay his hand on another block of marble, trusting that the same would not happen to the new block; and he often said that this was the reason that he gave for having executed so few statues and pictures." (http://members.efn.org/~acd/vite/VasariMichelangelo9.html)

and here Vasari mentions the artist's craving for solitude (and defends it): "No one should think it strange that Michelagnolo delighted in solitude, he having been one who was enamoured of his art, which claims man, with all his thoughts, for herself alone; moreover, it is necessary that he who wishes to attend to her studies should shun society, and, while attending to the considerations of art, he is never alone or without thoughts. And those who attributed it to caprice and eccentricity are wrong, because he who wishes to work well must withdraw himself from all cares and vexations, since art demands contemplation, solitude, and ease of life_and_ will not suffer the mind to wander." (http://members.efn.org/~acd/vite/VasariMichelangelo11.html)

The list goes on, but this should illustrate the point.

If you want a fuller discussion of the idea of the melancholy, tortured artist, I highly recommend Margot and Rudolf Wittkower, Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists(see a review here: https://www.nyrb.com/products/born-under-saturn?variant=1094929357). It goes into far more detail on the very question you ask.

To add to my previous reply: I think there is good evidence for this phenomenon of the "tortured, difficult artist" at least a couple hundred years before Vasari, in a sculptor named Giovanni Pisano. This evidence comes from (among other sources) two inscriptions he left as signatures on a pulpit he executed for the Pisa cathedral from 1301-1310.

The first inscription, which praises how great he was (I've bolded the relevant sections), reads:

"I praise the true God, through whose agency the best of things exist, who has permitted a man to fashion these pure figures. The hands, alone in their skill, of Giovanni (the late and son of Nicola) carved this work here when thirteen hundred and eleven full years of our Lord had passed, while Federigo, count (at the time, I say) of Montefeltro ruled over the Pisans, of one accord and yet separate with Nello di Falcone assisting, concerned not only with this work but also with the rules of the craft. He was born at Pisa, like that Giovanni who is endowed above all others with command of the art of pure sculpture. Sculpting splendid things in stone, wood, and gold, he could not have carved base ones even if he had so wished. There are many sculptors: to him alone remain the honors of praise. He made celebrated sculptures and various figures. Whoever you are, when you have marveled [at them], then you will approve them rightly. Christ have mercy upon him who had such gifts. Amen."

There is then a second inscription (running around the base of the monument) that is even more interesting. It reads:

"Here Giovanni encircled the rivers and regions of the world, undertaking without hope of reward to learn many things, and preparing everything with heavy labor. He now cries out: 'I have not been on guard enough, since the more I have shown my [achievements] the more I have experienced hostile injuries in my heart.' But I [the monument] endure the penalty of an ignoble man with an embittered mind, so that I may take envy away from him and soften his sorrow. And let me entreat an honor [from you]: bedew these verses [with your tears]. He proves himself unworthy in reproving a man worthy of the crown. Thus he reproves himself and approves him whom he reproves."

Giovanni had a troubled relationship with several patrons (he appears to have intentionally omitted the name of Burgundio di Tado, the overseer of works at the Pisa cathedral, in his signature because they didn't get along). For more on some of Giovanni's problems with Sienese patrons see Andrew Ladis, "Giovanni Pisano: Unfinished Business in Siena," in Studies in Italian Art (The Pindar Press: London, 2001): 177-84.

In short, while it's anachronistic to apply modern sensibilities to pre-modern artists, Giovanni Pisano certainly left behind evidence that makes him look a lot like the difficult, tortured artist we're used to seeing in the West (in popular imagination, at least).