Art by the Mentally Ill
July 29th, 2007This is a selection of art, from artists who happen to be famous and have a mental illness. I’ve selected the works based on my own taste, rather than what is most well-known.
I think you’ll agree that you can be mentally ill and fabulously talented at the same time.
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Pablo Picasso Weeping Woman, 1937 (Schizophrenia) |
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Caspar David Friedrich Cloister Graveyard in the Snow, 1810 Destroyed during WWII (Clinical Depression) |
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Jackson Pollock Blue (Moby Dick), c. 1943 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Adolf Wolfli Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain, 1910 (Schizophrenia) |
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Edward Dayes The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1798 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Edvard Munch Evening on Karl Johan, 1892 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Henri de Toulouse Lautrec La Toilette, 1896 (Clinical Depression) |
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Claude Monet Le dejeuner (The Lunch), 1873 (Clinical Depression) |
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Vincent Van Gogh Bench in a Wood, 1882 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Mark Rothko Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea, 1944 (Bipolar disorder) |
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Claude Monet Waterlillies, 1907 (Clinical Depression) |
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Pablo Picasso Figures on a Beach, 1931 (Schizophrenia) |
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July 29th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Nice paintings, but Pablo Picasso did not suffer from Schizophrenia, to my opinion. Narcissistic personality disorder probably, but having read his biography the diagnoses of schizophrenia seems unlikely to me.
All those women and how he dealt with them, no can’t imagine a patient suffering from schizophrenia doing that.
James Ensor [Belgian Expressionist Painter, 1860-1949] he suffered from Schizophrenia, see:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/archive/arts/26166/wonderfully-mad.thtml
Regards Dr Shock
August 16th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
[...] couple of weeks ago I posted some art by artists who are famous and have, or had, a mental illness. This is a similar post with artists who aren’t household [...]
August 19th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
[...] at finding optimism, there are two good little articles on famous and not-so-famous painters struggling with mental illness. take picasso, for example, who is said to have suffered from schizophrenia, or monet, who was [...]
October 17th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
[...] Art by the Mentally Ill (Part 1: Famous) Includes some diagnoses for the artists (tags: library) [...]
March 18th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Very nice pictures!
April 4th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Yeah i believe the style used for the weeping woman is just so extrodinary.
June 8th, 2008 at 7:44 am
This is a very difficult issue.
Diagnosing people who are alive is hard.
Diagnosing people who are dead and were not diagnosed in their lifetime is hard.
Diagnosing artists from the last century with diseases that didn’t exist is dangerous.
Van Gogh, whose work has always been regarded as a product of a his mental condition, has already been diagnosed:
-depression
-schizophrenia
-epilepsy
- maniac-derpessive
and now bipolar.
This is a very dangerous thing to do and psychiatrist love doing this lists of “famous lunatics”.
It’s amazing that all these people have a “good” character.
I’ve already met depressed, bipolar, schizophrenic people who are very evil and has no art skills.
Jung has a good approach on dissociating mental illness with “geniality”.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Picasso schizophrenic? No. This man’s life and art are very well documented- Where on earth are you getting your information?