Should you ever wear a blue suit to a funeral?
Georgia O’Keefe was one of the great female pioneers of art. She was born into a farming family in 1886, and fought countless obstacles to become an artist. She married an older photographer named Alfred Stieglitz, who would lift her up as an artist at the beginning of her career, but suffocate her later on.
Kahlo continued to paint self-portraits throughout her career as she lived through a devastating marriage, multiple miscarriages, infertility, depressive episodes, and several attempts to take her own life. Kahlo's deeply personal work expressed her constant turmoil and a great deal of suffering.
Famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo faced many challenges during her short life. She had polio as a child, which left her with a limp. When she was a teenager, she was hit by a street trolley, which left her broken and bedridden for three months. She painted while in bed as a way to express the mental and physical pain she was experiencing. This was the beginning of her extraordinary series of self-portraits.
Louis Wain was an English illustrator famed for his many depictions of cats behaving like humans. He got married at the age of 23, but soon lost his wife to cancer, which triggered a serious depressive episode. He had begun drawing cats to entertain his wife, but they became his defining motif.
In the 1950s, de Staël moved to the south of France, away from his family, to recover from a period of depression and focus on his work. Around this time he wrote a letter to his stepson, saying, "I don't know what I am going to do. Perhaps I have painted enough. I have achieved what I wanted. The children have what they need." Shortly afterward, he took his own life by jumping from the window of his apartment. Some speculate that he felt he had passed his artistic peak, which made him feel he had no reason left to live.
Miró's letters and interviews show that he was acutely aware of his own condition and wanted to transcend it. He described himself as a pessimistic person, prone to dark thoughts when he went too long without creating art. His creative work was one of many therapeutic practices he engaged in to lift himself out of depression.
The Franco-Russian painter Nicolas de Staël was known for his abstract landscape paintings during the mid-20th century. He was respected by contemporaries like Pablo Picasso and had a successful career as an artist, which is demonstrably rare! Regardless of his success, he was prone to depression and suffered from it periodically throughout his life.
Historians have divined signs of serious mental illness from his work and accounts of his life. Some say that the sense of melancholy underlying much of his work could be indicative of depression or bipolar disorder. Others have pointed out that portraits of Michelangelo by other artists show him looking somber and appearing to be in poor health. There's also speculation that he may have had Asperger's syndrome.
Mark Rothko was a hugely influential abstract artist who worked out of New York. He's best known for his simplistic paintings made up of rectangular blocks of color. Rothko suffered from long periods of depression throughout his life.
Renaissance master Michelangelo is responsible for creating some of the most famous works of art in the world, from the paintings of the Sistine Chapel to incredible sculptures like the Pietà (pictured). Michelangelo is perhaps the most famous and most accomplished artistic genius in history.
He drank, smoked, and didn't take very good care of himself. A friend described him as "highly nervous, thin, restless." In his final years, his color palette became bleaker as his mental and physical health deteriorated. He was diagnosed with a debilitating heart condition and took his own life a couple of years later at the age of 66.
It's hard to imagine anything more devastating for an artist than to lose their sight. Edgar Degas was one of the most influential painters of the 19th century, known for his beautiful impressionistic works of ballet dancers, but he started losing his vision in the 1880s.
Already predisposed to depression, Degas' mental state worsened along with his eyesight. He isolated himself and became a recluse until he finally lost his studio. He died wandering the streets of Paris at the age of 83.
A few years after Van Gogh's death, Gauguin was in a dire state himself. He wrote that he was despairing “to the point that I no longer dare paint and I drag my old body along the shores.” He was in financial ruin and had left his family to live a lonely life in Tahiti, where he attempted to take his own life. He poisoned himself with arsenic but survived, and continued to paint the local people until he died of a heart attack a few years later.
Pollock used art as part of his therapy while he was institutionalized, and his psychiatrist preserved more than 80 of his drawings. Sadly, Pollock struggled with his mental illness for the rest of his life and used alcohol to deal with the pain. He died in a car accident while driving under the influence at the age of 44.
Jackson Pollock was an American artist active during the first half of the 20th century. He's considered to be the father of abstract expressionism and is known for his large drip paintings. Pollock struggled with bipolar disorder and received treatment at a psychiatric hospital in 1938.
At the age of 46, he was confined to bed, suffering from vision and hearing loss, hallucinations, and delirium. Despite his recovery, he continued to be struck with these symptoms periodically. Goya created a series called 'The Black Paintings' over a period of several years when he was at his worst. The dark masterpieces carry the weight of human suffering and his own crippling fear of insanity.
He himself suffered from hypochondria, "hysteria," depression, and hallucinations. During a particularly dire period for his mental health, the subjects in his paintings took on a distinctly anguished and despairing quality. But unlike many other artists of the 20th century, Munch was able to improve his mental well-being through therapy, and his artwork returned to its earlier style.
Van Gogh left the hospital without much improvement and spent his final year with his brother. He found solace in painting and nature, producing 70 paintings in as many days at one point, but he eventually took his own life.
Van Gogh suffered from anxiety and depression. His first major breakdown occurred when he was 35 years old, after a devastating argument with his fellow artist and close friend Paul Gauguin. This was when Van Gogh famously cut off his ear. From this point onwards he would be in and out of hospital. During moments of crisis, he would become extremely confused and didn't know what he was saying or doing. In letters to his brother, he described hearing voices and having hallucinations. He spent a year in a psychiatric hospital in 1889.
Francisco Goya was a Romantic Spanish painter who is best known for his harrowing depictions of the Spanish War for Independence and the Peninsular War. Goya lived in troubling times, but was also deeply troubled himself. He suffered from an awful condition that affected both his mental and physical health, although the diagnosis is unclear.
Stieglitz attempted to control O'Keefe's business decisions and finances, all while carrying on multiple public affairs with other women. She eventually suffered a nervous breakdown in 1929 and was hospitalized for "psychoneurosis." She managed to find balance by spending more time creating art in her beloved New Mexico countryside and less time in New York with her husband. He passed away in 1946, while O'Keefe lived another 40 years, making it to the ripe old age of 98.
Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh were both impressionists who suffered from mental illnesses. The two were friends and worked together for a period until their relationship broke down. Like Van Gogh, Gauguin experienced debilitating periods of depression.
Vincent Van Gogh is perhaps the most famous artist to have suffered from severe mental illness. Some of his greatest works of art, such as 'Starry Night,' were painted while he was being treated at a psychiatric clinic. Historians speculate that his psychological condition may have contributed to the unique perspective and style of his paintings.
As the years went on, Wain's mental health deteriorated and he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. As his condition altered his view of the world, his artistic style began to change. Wain spent his final years in a psychiatric hospital where he continued to draw, but his cats became distinctly psychedelic compared to his earlier works.
Sources: (DailyArt Magazine) (Sartle) (Brainz) (Break the Stigma)
See also: The cat's role in art history
Spanish artist Joan Miró suffered from cyclical depression from childhood and throughout his life. At the age of 18, he spent three months in bed due to this condition. In some ways, it also helped him find his true calling, as it was a bout of depression that led him to quit business school and pursue a career as an artist.
Art history and psychology intersect in a fascinating way when experts try to understand the impact mental illness has on creativity. Art can be used as a safe way to express pain and trauma in a therapeutic manner, and some of the greatest art in history has been born from immense suffering. The correlation between creativity and depression has long been acknowledged in the field of psychiatry, although mental illness is not a prerequisite for artistic genius.
That being said, many of history’s greatest artists have smeared the darkest corners of their minds onto canvas to create masterpieces that cause both horror and reverence. Click through the following gallery to see which famous artists struggled with mental illness, and how it impacted their work.
These famous artists struggled with mental illness
Several of history's creative geniuses have taken inspiration from their demons
LIFESTYLE Art
Art history and psychology intersect in a fascinating way when experts try to understand the impact mental illness has on creativity. Art can be used as a safe way to express pain and trauma in a therapeutic manner, and some of the greatest art in history has been born from immense suffering. The correlation between creativity and depression has long been acknowledged in the field of psychiatry, although mental illness is not a prerequisite for artistic genius.
That being said, many of history’s greatest artists have smeared the darkest corners of their minds onto canvas to create masterpieces that cause both horror and reverence. Click through the following gallery to see which famous artists struggled with mental illness, and how it impacted their work.