Till Death Do Us Part
the marriage of art and madness

April 1994
Dublin
Anne Stahl
Diploma in Fine Art
Dun Laoghaire
College of Art and Design

Copyright © 1998-04 [Anne Stahl]. All rights reserved.
no part of this text may be used or printed without the explicit written permission by the author.
To request permission, or to get further information contact the author here.

Acknowledgements *

Introduction *

Chapter 1 Creativity hurts *

1.1 Those who make the legend live
1.2 The pressure on artists
1.3 You don't have to be mad to be an artist, but it helps
1.3a Depression
1.3b Escapism - alcoholism, drug abuse
1.3c Suicide - destruction and creation

Chapter 2 The ‘Mad Artist Syndrome’ *

2.1 Society’s Creation
2.2 Why an artist might like to be seen as mad
2.3 A myth born by documentation

Chapter 3 Creativity Helps *

3.1 Why mentally unstable people might choose an artistic profession
3.2 The art of the mad – art therapy

Chapter 4 The Brainstorm *

4.1 Brief insight into modern brain-research

Epilogue *

Bibliography *

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for helping me with this thesis :

my thesis supervisor Tom Duffy.
Prof.Dr.Reiner Michaelis for the interview.
Ingi and Hannes for ideas, research and materials.
Dr.Dr. Manfred in der Beeck.
Magarete Platzer .
those who returned the questionnaire.
Brian and Kevin for the help with the computer.
the DLCAD-library staff .
the library staff at TCD and the ILAC-Centre.
Ross for proofreading.

Introduction

The discussion of the relationship between art and madness within this thesis, is not intended to be a truly scientific work, but rather and investigative essay concentrating on providing only the most important and relevant information.

In order to avoid a probably largely fruitless discussion about what should be considered art and what should not, I will refer to c r e a t i v e as :

someone who :

uses existing information in a new and original way
has the ability to think productively
is distinguished by :
- flexibility
- frankness
- unconventional thinking
- tolerance for frustration
- the resilience to prevail against already established opinions

Hence the term art when used , only serves to illustrate the probable results of creativity.

The misuse of the term madness appears to play a fundamental role in the assumption of a relationship between creativity and madness. To this end I have asked Prof.Dr.R.Michaelis to give me a professional definition. Here is the essence of what he told me :

The term madness is colloquial; professionals use the term psychosis. Psychosis is a serious mental disorder, which develops either :

by itself (endogenous), or as a result of for example a poisoning (organic).

Endogenous psychosis is divided into two main areas:
schizophrenia (split-personality) and affective illness (manic-depression).

All psychosis include :
- disturbance of psychic functions
- behavioural changes
- patients' incapability to accept that they are ill
- loss of sense of reality
- restlessness
- eating disorders
- etc.

This definition would limit the number of truly mad artists a lot, since I suspect that the public would call nearly anyone mad who is distinctly different .

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