How Does Mental Illness Impact an Artist's Work?

  • Thread starter hc_17
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In summary, artists' work can definitely be influenced by their depression or mental illness. Many notable artists have struggled with mental health issues, and these struggles have often had a profound impact on their work. Mental illness can both hinder and inspire creativity, and it is a common theme throughout art history. Some specific examples include Van Gogh, Beethoven, and Nietzsche, all of whom are believed to have suffered from mental illness. Furthermore, there is a long-standing debate about whether suffering is necessary for great art, with some philosophers even arguing that it is a prerequisite for true intellectual soundness. Ultimately, the relationship between mental illness and art is complex and multifaceted, and it continues to be a topic of interest and discussion in the art world
  • #36
moe darklight said:
O no :eek: I hate when that happens :yuck: O well, happens to everyone once in a while; there are only so many words in the english language :biggrin:

what song is it? I don't know any songs by the who.

No, I mean it sounds like something The Who would write. Not actual Who: Pseudo-Who.
 
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  • #37
As an artist with bouts of productivity, I have often argued that a state of angst is often a requirement for creativity. When I'm happy and doing well, my artistic productivity drops to zero.
 
  • #38
DaveC426913 said:
As an artist with bouts of productivity, I have often argued that a state of angst is often a requirement for creativity. When I'm happy and doing well, my artistic productivity drops to zero.

I guess for you, then, it represents a retreat into the cave to work out problems.

I, personally, have to feel moderately OK about things in general or I can't pick up a pencil to draw.
 
  • #39
DaveC426913 said:
As an artist with bouts of productivity, I have often argued that a state of angst is often a requirement for creativity. When I'm happy and doing well, my artistic productivity drops to zero.

Same for me. I used to be depressed quite a bit and it was this state that impelled me to do art. For me it functioned kind of like hunger or thirst, a negative drive that eventually forces a behavior to satisfy it. The process of creating in this state often felt cathartic, as if I was externalizing the bad vibes and so getting them out of my system. And this all helped both the quality and quantity of my stuff. My dabbling in art, besides fooling around on guitar a bit, has dropped to about nil since I've been generally quite happy and depression free the past few years.
 
  • #40
Thanks guys, this is really helping me! anyone else who has something to say, go ahead! :)
 
  • #41
hc_17 said:
Thanks guys, this is really helping me! anyone else who has something to say, go ahead! :)
How are a few random opinions by people who dabble in art on the side of any importance?
 
  • #42
Children's art (painting) seems to have a strong correlation, when the child is going through stressful and/or 'abnormal' times, in the painting to be able to 'read' the status of the child sometimes, as to the color, composition, etc. , and is sometimes used to initiate conversations about problems within the child.
 
  • #43
rewebster said:
Children's art (painting) seems to have a strong correlation, when the child is going through stressful and/or 'abnormal' times, in the painting to be able to 'read' the status of the child sometimes, as to the color, composition, etc. , and is sometimes used to initiate conversations about problems within the child.

Can depression or mentall illness affect the way a child ties their shoe? Yes. Can it affect the way they eat? Yes. Can it affect the way they speak? Yes. Can it affect the way they do homework? Yes. Can it affect the way they interact with others? Yes. Can it affect the way they draw? Yes.

A huge percentage of depressed and mentally ill people have no artistic inclinations.

Michaelangelo was an irritable, cranky person. The Pope, who couldn't paint or sculpt, was vastly more difficult to get along with. Can a Pontiffs depression or mental illness affect his papacy?

Can a computer programmer's depression or mental illness affect his programming?

Can a physicists depression or mental illness affect his experimentation?
 
  • #44
zoobyshoe said:
How are a few random opinions by people who dabble in art on the side of any importance?

well, in my case, I dabble in science on the side for fun and do art professionally (well, just starting out professionally) :smile:... I was going to go into biology, but what's the fun in a stable career :rofl:

I would get a bigger sample though (I assume you're not going by just 3 or 4 people), but I don't think that just because they don't do art professionally it makes them any less of an artist... I can think of more than a few famous artists who had other means of supporting themselves because they couldn't make a cent with their poetry/painting/writing for most of their life (or even all of it in some cases).
 
  • #45
didn't mean to hit a nerve there, zoobie---

I thought hc_17 might find reading some about kid's art and relate something that he may be looking for
 
  • #46
zoobyshoe said:
Can depression or mentall illness affect the way a child ties their shoe? Yes. Can it affect the way they eat? Yes. Can it affect the way they speak? Yes. Can it affect the way they do homework? Yes. Can it affect the way they interact with others? Yes. Can it affect the way they draw? Yes.

A huge percentage of depressed and mentally ill people have no artistic inclinations.

Michaelangelo was an irritable, cranky person. The Pope, who couldn't paint or sculpt, was vastly more difficult to get along with. Can a Pontiffs depression or mental illness affect his papacy?

Can a computer programmer's depression or mental illness affect his programming?

Can a physicists depression or mental illness affect his experimentation?

I don't think anyone's saying that everyone who suffers from depression automatically becomes a great artist. I wasn't saying that, at least.

My mom is a psychologist who works mostly with traumatized children. Many of her sessions consist of having the child just paint, or play with toys. Sometimes she can get more information out of sitting and watching a kid play or paint, than from asking him questions.
 
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  • #47
moe darklight said:
I don't think anyone's saying that everyone who suffers from depression automatically becomes a great artist. I wasn't saying that, at least.
There is a meme to the effect that mentally ill people are also very creative. People still believe the old saying "There is a fine line between genius and madness". It is clear that some people romanticize mental illness as the gateway to genius.

It's a meme that should be killed because, in fact, most mentally ill people lead terrible, painful, unproductive lives.
 
  • #48
zoobyshoe said:
There is a meme to the effect that mentally ill people are also very creative. People still believe the old saying "There is a fine line between genius and madness". It is clear that some people romanticize mental illness as the gateway to genius.

It's a meme that should be killed because, in fact, most mentally ill people lead terrible, painful, unproductive lives.

Yea, that's true. I think people get these ideas either because artists tend to approach ideas in ways that most people wouldn't (films by Cronenberg or Aronofsky might lead people to think that they are insane), or because some artists and scientists are simply eccentric or "weird."

There is long way from eccentricity to mental illness, and I agree with you that there is somewhat of a romanticized idea of the "mad scientist" or "tortured artist" — Philip K. Dick was mentally ill; Kafka was just eccentric.
 
  • #49
moe darklight said:
Yea, that's true. I think people get these ideas either because artists tend to approach ideas in ways that most people wouldn't (films by Cronenberg or Aronofsky might lead people to think that they are insane), or because some artists and scientists are simply eccentric or "weird."

There is long way from eccentricity to mental illness, and I agree with you that there is somewhat of a romanticized idea of the "mad scientist" or "tortured artist" — Philip K. Dick was mentally ill; Kafka was just eccentric.

To stand out from the crowd an artist needs 1.) technical skill 2.) creativity.

While certain kinds of mental illness produce concommitant out-of-the-box thought processes that can be substituted for creativity, there is no mental illness that produces technical skill. That has to be developed by constant practice. In most cases mental illness makes that kind of sustained, long term effort impossible. On the other hand you also find obsessive behaviors in mentally ill people. In rare cases they can direct their obsessive tendencies at acquiring technical skills that allow them to articulate their out-of-the-box thinking. People like this are pretty much freaks, and don't represent typical mentally ill people or typical artists.
 
  • #50
zoobyshoe said:
To stand out from the crowd an artist needs 1.) technical skill 2.) creativity.

You forgot 3.) a certain je-ne-sais-quoi :biggrin:
 
  • #51
moe darklight said:
You forgot 3.) a certain je-ne-sais-quoi :biggrin:

Oh yeah, You need a magic word or animal sacrifice.
 
  • #52
zoobyshoe said:
Oh yeah, You need a magic word or animal sacrifice.

ssshhh! stop giving away our secrets! :eek:
 
  • #53
moe darklight said:
You forgot 3.) a certain je-ne-sais-quoi :biggrin:

Besides 1) and 2)

I've heard 3) was:

salesmanship and/or sales management* (self or someone else)


*that is, if you want to be 'known' in your own lifetime


and 4) productivity
 
  • #54
zoobyshoe said:
How are a few random opinions by people who dabble in art on the side of any importance?


I'm doing a project for my A-level art, we can do whatever we want, as long as it relates back to art, so i chose depression, which is a huge issue as many artists suffered from it, and if people who paint have an opinion on it i would like to hear it so i can incorporate it into my project to understand what different people think of the matter, whether it inspires people to work or not, how it affects them, or how they think it affects other people, the more opinions i get the better :smile:
 
  • #55
hc_17 said:
I'm doing a project for my A-level art, we can do whatever we want, as long as it relates back to art, so i chose depression, which is a huge issue as many artists suffered from it, and if people who paint have an opinion on it i would like to hear it so i can incorporate it into my project to understand what different people think of the matter, whether it inspires people to work or not, how it affects them, or how they think it affects other people, the more opinions i get the better :smile:

There's different types of depression--are you going to go into that?---
 
  • #56
hc_17 said:
I'm doing a project for my A-level art, we can do whatever we want, as long as it relates back to art, so i chose depression, which is a huge issue as many artists suffered from it, and if people who paint have an opinion on it i would like to hear it so i can incorporate it into my project to understand what different people think of the matter, whether it inspires people to work or not, how it affects them, or how they think it affects other people, the more opinions i get the better :smile:
Never mind that.

You like this drawing? :

Violet650Gr.jpg
 
  • #57
rewebster said:
didn't mean to hit a nerve there, zoobie---

I thought hc_17 might find reading some about kid's art and relate something that he may be looking for

Thankyou i do find it very helpful, i suffer from depression myself and when i was a bit younger i used to write poetry and at my worse i whacked out an awful lot of art and became quite ahead in my class because that's all i ever did to express myself. I think children are just as important, because although my project is based around adults, they go through a lot of the same things adults do which are usually passed off because they are so young.

oh and I am a girl :smile:
 
  • #58
rewebster said:
There's different types of depression--are you going to go into that?---

The main one I am exploring is Bipolar, because during my research I've found it seems to be a lot more common.
And I've already interviewed an artist with bipolar and can't be bothered trying to get in touch with other artists, i was lucky with her, and very grateful for it.
 
  • #59
zoobyshoe said:
Never mind that.

You like this drawing? :

Violet650Gr.jpg

Ok, admit it zoobyshoe, you take pictures and press "posterise" on adobe, the jig is up :biggrin:

If your project is strictly about painters, then I'm not of much help; I work in film (starting to, at least). Sometimes I write non-screenplaywise as well (I posted a link to one of my stories about a month ago), but I'm not too serious into it. I'm not much of a painter; the best I can do is doodles like my profile pics.
 
  • #60
hc_17 said:
I'm doing a project for my A-level art, we can do whatever we want, as long as it relates back to art, so i chose depression, which is a huge issue as many artists suffered from it, and if people who paint have an opinion on it i would like to hear it so i can incorporate it into my project to understand what different people think of the matter, whether it inspires people to work or not, how it affects them, or how they think it affects other people, the more opinions i get the better :smile:
I agree with zooby that depression is more debilitating than enabling. At a very general level (I am not commenting on individual experiences, and I am not a mental health professional), I think fighting with depression (therapy, emotional awareness, etc.) is more likely to contribute to one's focus and productivity. IMO, the people who are more creative are the ones that have a handle on their depression -- they might be conscious of their anger and looking for a way to deal with it. (Or perhaps they are "riding the manic cycle" -- the opposite of depression.) Contrast this with someone who is not even aware that there is anger inside, just depressed; he or she would be more likely to just stare at the TV all day.
 
  • #61
hc_17 said:
Thankyou i do find it very helpful, i suffer from depression myself and when i was a bit younger i used to write poetry and at my worse i whacked out an awful lot of art and became quite ahead in my class because that's all i ever did to express myself. I think children are just as important, because although my project is based around adults, they go through a lot of the same things adults do which are usually passed off because they are so young.

oh and im a girl :smile:

whoops, my assumption---I should have been a little more aware and recognized a softer writing style --and then asked anyway.

Are you looking at the history, personal subjective viewpoint, or inventory-type overview of others, general attitudes, images, or ?
 
  • #62
moe darklight said:
Ok, admit it zoobyshoe, you take pictures and press "posterise" on adobe, the jig is up :biggrin:
Don't even say idiot **** like that. People will believe it.
 
  • #63
hc_17 said:
The main one I am exploring is Bipolar, because during my research I've found it seems to be a lot more common.
And I've already interviewed an artist with bipolar and can't be bothered trying to get in touch with other artists, i was lucky with her, and very grateful for it.
"Can't be bothered"? If you're not going to try and get a real sampling of real working artists then you might as well be writing fiction.

I don't understand why you posted here at all. There are plenty of Art forums on the web.
 
  • #64
zoobyshoe said:
Don't even say idiot **** like that. People will believe it.

tough crowd...

OP you should be more specific with your question, and an art forum would give you a larger sample.
 
  • #65
zoobyshoe said:
"Can't be bothered"? If you're not going to try and get a real sampling of real working artists then you might as well be writing fiction.

I don't understand why you posted here at all. There are plenty of Art forums on the web.

play nice, children
 
  • #66
rewebster said:
play nice, children
It's OK. I'm going to an art forum now to get some physics information.
 
  • #67
zoobyshoe said:
It's OK. I'm going to an art forum now to get some physics information.

good idea--there's a lot of physics in art, doncha know


and that's seems logical---especially since there's a lot of 'art' stuff here to look at and learn about from the artists here with their special more scientific perspective, too
 
  • #68
rewebster said:
play nice, children

zoobyshoe said:
It's OK. I'm going to an art forum now to get some physics information.

rewebster said:
good idea--there's a lot of physics in art, doncha know


and that's seems logical---especially since there's a lot of 'art' stuff here to look at and learn about from the artists here with their special more scientific perspective, too

we're soo not getting ice-cream after dinner tonight.
 
  • #69
rewebster said:
good idea--there's a lot of physics in art, doncha know


and that's seems logical---especially since there's a lot of 'art' stuff here to look at and learn about from the artists here with their special more scientific perspective, too

It's funny: you run into artists now and then who have a lot more physics and chemistry knowledge than artists are supposed to. Supposedly artists hate science. Some of them enjoy it a lot, though.
 
  • #70
I definitely do. I spend a lot of my free time reading on science, and I'm always on PF while I work on my computer... I barely ever go on the cinematography forums, unless I have a technical problem or something like that.

Plus, scientists are fun to talk to because, well, it's your job to know stuff, and people who know stuff are interesting to talk to... you don't find a lot of places on the internet where you can have a rational debate like on PF, and I love debating (obviously :biggrin:); it's a great way to both learn and exercise one's mental muscles at the same time.
 
<h2>1. How does mental illness affect an artist's creativity?</h2><p>Mental illness can both hinder and enhance an artist's creativity. Some artists may find that their mental illness causes them to experience periods of intense creativity and inspiration, while others may struggle to create due to their symptoms. Additionally, certain mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, have been linked to increased creativity and artistic expression.</p><h2>2. Can mental illness lead to more meaningful or impactful art?</h2><p>There is no definitive answer to this question as it largely depends on the individual and their unique experiences with mental illness. Some artists may find that their struggles with mental illness give them a deeper understanding of human emotions and allow them to create more impactful art. However, others may feel that their mental illness hinders their ability to create meaningful work.</p><h2>3. Is there a correlation between specific mental illnesses and certain types of art?</h2><p>While there have been studies that suggest a link between certain mental illnesses and creativity, there is no evidence to suggest that specific mental illnesses are correlated with certain types of art. Each individual's experiences and artistic style are unique, and cannot be solely attributed to their mental health.</p><h2>4. How does treatment for mental illness impact an artist's work?</h2><p>Treatment for mental illness can greatly impact an artist's work. Some artists may find that medication or therapy helps them to manage their symptoms and allows them to create more consistently. Others may feel that treatment stifles their creativity or changes their artistic perspective. It is important for artists to work closely with their mental health professionals to find a treatment plan that supports their mental health and artistic goals.</p><h2>5. Can mental illness be a source of inspiration for an artist?</h2><p>For some artists, their mental illness may serve as a source of inspiration for their work. It can provide them with unique perspectives and experiences to draw from. However, it is important to remember that mental illness is a serious condition and should not be romanticized or glorified in art. It is important for artists to prioritize their mental health and seek appropriate treatment if needed.</p>

1. How does mental illness affect an artist's creativity?

Mental illness can both hinder and enhance an artist's creativity. Some artists may find that their mental illness causes them to experience periods of intense creativity and inspiration, while others may struggle to create due to their symptoms. Additionally, certain mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, have been linked to increased creativity and artistic expression.

2. Can mental illness lead to more meaningful or impactful art?

There is no definitive answer to this question as it largely depends on the individual and their unique experiences with mental illness. Some artists may find that their struggles with mental illness give them a deeper understanding of human emotions and allow them to create more impactful art. However, others may feel that their mental illness hinders their ability to create meaningful work.

3. Is there a correlation between specific mental illnesses and certain types of art?

While there have been studies that suggest a link between certain mental illnesses and creativity, there is no evidence to suggest that specific mental illnesses are correlated with certain types of art. Each individual's experiences and artistic style are unique, and cannot be solely attributed to their mental health.

4. How does treatment for mental illness impact an artist's work?

Treatment for mental illness can greatly impact an artist's work. Some artists may find that medication or therapy helps them to manage their symptoms and allows them to create more consistently. Others may feel that treatment stifles their creativity or changes their artistic perspective. It is important for artists to work closely with their mental health professionals to find a treatment plan that supports their mental health and artistic goals.

5. Can mental illness be a source of inspiration for an artist?

For some artists, their mental illness may serve as a source of inspiration for their work. It can provide them with unique perspectives and experiences to draw from. However, it is important to remember that mental illness is a serious condition and should not be romanticized or glorified in art. It is important for artists to prioritize their mental health and seek appropriate treatment if needed.

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