Numerous studies have
demonstrated correlations between creative occupations and mental illnesses
including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia
A study conducted by the
psychologist J. Philippe Rushton found creativity to correlate with
intelligence and psychoticism. Particularly strong links have been identified
between creativity and mood disorders, particularly manic-depressive disorder
and depressive disorder
Artist Vincent Van Gogh
provided ample anecdotal evidence when he lopped off the lower lobe of his left
ear in 1888 and gift wrapped it for a prostitute he loved. Author Ernest
Hemingway, long plagued by depression, may have done the same when he took his
own life with a shotgun in 1961, and a more recent example is that of Robin
Williams an extremely talented actor who took his own life after a long battle
with depression. These cases provide insight into the dynamic relationship
between mental illness and creativity, but no rational explanation.
There
are many examples of artists who were plagued with mental health issues
throughout their lives but it was this that they often translated into the art
they created for example….
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch (12 December 1863
– 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose intensely
evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main tenets
of late 19th-century Symbolism and greatly influenced German Expressionism in
the early 20th century. One of his most well-known works is The Scream of 1893.
In the autumn of 1908, Munch's
anxiety, compounded by excessive drinking and brawling, had become acute. As he
later wrote, "My condition was verging on madness—it was touch and
go." Subject to hallucinations and feelings of persecution, he entered the
clinic of Dr. Daniel Jacobson.
Vincent Willem van Gogh (30
March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a major Post-Impressionist. A Dutch painter
whose work—notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold colour—had
a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety
and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally
accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found).
There has been much debate over
the years as to the source of Van Gogh's illness and its effect on his work.
Over 150 psychiatrists have attempted to label its root, with some 30 different
diagnoses. Diagnoses include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis,
poisoning from swallowed paints, temporal lobe epilepsy, and acute intermittent
porphyria. Any of these could have been the culprit, and could have been
aggravated by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia, and consumption of alcohol,
especially absinthe.
Francis Bacon (28 October 1909
– 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his
bold, graphic and emotionally raw imagery.
His painterly but abstracted
figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages, set
against flat, nondescript backgrounds. His breakthrough came with the 1944
triptych
Three Studies for Figures at
the Base of a Crucifixion which sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak
chronicler of the human condition. Following the 1971 suicide of his lover
George Dyer, his art became more personal, inward looking and preoccupied with
themes and motifs of death.
Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin, CBE, RA (born 3
July 1963) is an English artist. She is part of the group known as Britartists
or YBAs (Young British Artists).
Emin was born in Croydon, to an
English mother of Romani descent. Emin was brought up in Margate. Emin's
father, a Turkish Cypriot, was married to a woman other than her mother and
divided his time between his two families. He owned the Hotel International in
Margate, and, when the business failed, Emin's family suffered a severe decline
in their standard of living, circumstances which have featured in some works.
She was allegedly raped around the age of thirteen.
In 1999, Emin was shortlisted
for the Turner Prize herself and exhibited My Bed at the Tate Gallery. There
was considerable media furore regarding the apparently trivial and possibly
unhygienic elements of the installation, such as yellow stains on the
bedsheets, condoms, empty cigarette packets and a pair of knickers with
menstrual stains. The bed was presented as it had been when she had stayed in
it for several days feeling suicidal because of relationship difficulties.
The piece, which she describes
as a self-portrait, was made by Emin in 1998, when she was living in a council
flat in Waterloo.
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January
28, 1912 – August 11, 1956), known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential
American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He
was well known for his unique style of drip painting.
During his lifetime, Pollock
enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety, a major artist of his generation.
Regarded as reclusive, he had a volatile personality, and struggled with
alcoholism for most of his life
Pollock died at the age of 44
in an alcohol-related single-car accident when he was driving. In December
1956, several months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial
retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.
Trying to deal with his
established alcoholism, from 1938 through 1941 Pollock underwent Jungian psychotherapy
with Dr. Joseph Henderson and later with Dr. Violet Staub de Laszlo in
1941-1942. Henderson engaged him through his art, encouraging Pollock to make
drawings. Jungian concepts and archetypes were expressed in his paintings.
Recently historians have hypothesised that Pollock might have had bipolar
disorder.
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko was an American
painter of Russian Jewish descent. He is generally identified as an Abstract
Expressionist. With Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, he is one of the
most famous postwar American artists.Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk
Governorate, in the Russian Empire. In an environment where Jews were often
blamed for many of the evils that befell Russia, Rothko's early childhood was
plagued by fear. In the spring of 1968, Rothko was diagnosed with a mild aortic
aneurysm. Ignoring doctor's orders, Rothko continued to drink and smoke
heavily, avoided exercise, and maintained an unhealthy diet. On February 25,
1970, Oliver Steindecker, Rothko's assistant, found the artist in his kitchen,
lying dead on the floor in front of the sink, covered in blood. He had sliced
his arms with a razor found lying at his side. The autopsy revealed that he had
also overdosed on anti-depressants. He was sixty-six years old. The Seagram
Murals arrived in London for display at the Tate Gallery on the very day of his
suicide.
By Eliza Molloy and Katie Smith
