The Connection Between Mental Illness and Creativity

The connection between creativity and mental illnesses has been a source of interest towards researchers for years. Mental illnesses have a large impact on the sufferer's creativity and how they express themselves. Many household names in the art world have dealt with mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, mania, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc. These illnesses and their impacts are visible in some of the world's most famous paintings, literature, etc.

Probably the most popular example of the "mad artist" stereotype was none other than famously talented painter Vincent van Gogh. "I put my heart and my soul into my work, and lost my mind in the process," he once said.

Van Gogh was said to have suffered from depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. In a fit of madness, he infamously cut off a piece of his own ear. He was belittled and ridiculed in his lifetime.

Van Gogh's posthumously famous painting, Starry Night was created when he was incapacitated for his mental health. Starry Night is said to depict the view from his window in the asylum he was in.

Edvard Munch is another famous artist that was plagued with mental illness, including anxiety and hallucinations. Munch is the creator of the very famous painting, The Scream.

Munch's inspiration for the painting came from an evening walk when the sky began to turn blood red and he was trembling with anxiety as he felt an "infinite scream" through nature.

Munch's painting, titled Self-Portrait in Hell, is made to show his feelings on his life at the time as a man and an artist: a private hell.

Another painting of Munch's that display his inner struggles with mental illness is his 1894 painting, Anxiety. Pictured in the same place as The Scream, the figures look ghastly and watchful.

At one point, Munch wrote in his diary, "My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art."

Sorrow is expressed in Separation. The woman seems to be leaving the man, as he is dressed in dark colors and, with a bloody, cluthing his heart. The flower below him appears to be his bloody heart.

Claude Monet, founder of the French Impressionist movement, was another popular and talented artist of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Although no records show Monet suffered from any mental illnesses, he did however attempt suicide at one point to escape heavy financial troubles he was under when his career as an artist was failing.

Despite not suffering from any mental illnesses, some of Monet's most famous works of art were created in a period of mourning following the death of his wife and muse, Camille, pictured here.

Cliff Walk at Pourville, completed in 1882, is a famous Monet piece, made three years after Camille's death in 1879.

Pictured here is another piece by Monet created in 1881, two years after Camille's passing.

If not Monet's most popular piece, Water Lilies was started in 1915, following the death of his second wife Alice in 1911.

Another piece in Monet's Water Lilies collection, completed in 1916.

Unrelated to the following paintings, other famous creators that were not visual artists but writers, poets, actors, etc. will be mentioned.

Writer Sylvia Plath suffered from depression and took her own life in 1963 at age thirty. She infamously stuck her head in the oven and died of carbon monoxide poisoning while her two children slept upstairs.

Virginia Woolf was a famed writer that suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders. She drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on.

Famed Wizard of Oz actress Judy Garland suffered from bipolar disorder, as well as Ludwig van Beethoven, Isaac Newton, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Schumann and Winston Churchill.

Research has found a higher prevalence of mental illness in individuals pursuing a creative career, such as writers, artists, musicians, composers, and those involved with theater.

A study conducted by the Karolinska Institute found writers have a higher risk of suffering from anxiety, schizophrenia and substance abuse. They concluded that writers were 121% more likely to be bipolar, as well as 50% more likely to commit suicide.

To conclude, mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. have had a clear influence on some of the world's most famous artists and their work of the last two hundred years.