How the work of eight artists revealed a much more personal truth…
A penniless painter haunted by melancholy and depression whose reputation as one of the greatest modern artists only truly blossomed after his suicide, van Gogh – the man – seemed like the very picture of pity.
But depression does not discriminate. Mental wellbeing transcended – as it continues to transcend today – wealth and status. For every struggling artist who fought his own demons there existed another who suffered while the commissions rolled in. Van Gogh might be the archetype of today’s vision of a tortured genius, but even court painters like Goya and ‘Renaissance men’ like Michelangelo faced hardships in mental health.
These artists, however, aren’t to be pitied – in many cases, these creative geniuses acknowledged the drive and inspiration that they gleaned from their personal struggles, particularly van Gogh.
Indeed, Richard Dadd, a Victorian painter who spent his life in asylums, was liberated creatively by life locked up in an asylum.
PAUL GAUGUIN 1848-1903
PLAGUED BY HEALTH ISSUES AND DECADES OF DEPRESSION, GAUGUIN WAS DETERMINED TO END HIS LIFE ON HIS OWN TERMS
A stockbroker in Paris, Paul Gauguin initially ventured into art as a hobby, his income from selling paintings mere pocket money compared to his city career. However, after the Paris stock market crashed in 1882, Gauguin decided to embrace painting fulltime while travelling the French colonies. But in Martinique, he caught dysentery and malaria and was so unwell that he was forced to return to France.
A drunken brawl in 1894 left Gauguin with a shattered ankle that never truly healed. A year later, Gauguin left for the French colonies, never to return to Europe again. In 1897, in debt and on the brink of the banks foreclosing, Gauguin heard the devastating news that his daughter, Aline, had died. Heartbroken, Gauguin completed what he believed to be his masterpiece, walked to a nearby hill and attempted suicide by consuming arsenic. His endeavour was unsuccessful and he awoke throwing it up. However, his health never recovered and he eventually died in prison in 1903.
EDVARD MUNCH 1863-1944
THROUGH HIS PAINTINGS, MUNCH OBSESSED OVER HIS OWN MORTALITY
When Norwegian artist Edvard Munch wrote of his childhood that “disease and insanity were the black angels on guard at my cradle,” little could he have predicted that he would live well into his 80s, surviving not only war and global health pandemics, but also his own melancholy. After his mother’s death at the hands of tuberculosis in his early childhood, Munch grew up surrounded by his siblings and father, from whom Munch believed he had inherited what he called the “seed of madness.” Munch’s father, Christian, was pious to the point of obsession, even waking his son during the night to watch the boy’s sister, Sophie, die.
The inevitability of death loomed over Munch for the rest of his life, and after moving to Paris, he was soon forced back home after his father’s death left the remaining family in financial ruin.
Returning to Paris and Berlin, Munch’s increased drinking was taking its toll on the artist; his fatalism continued to overshadow his life and he developed severe anxiety. In 1893 he created the first iteration of The Scream after suffering a panic attack in Nice, later explaining that he “sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked”.
In the years that followed, Munch’s mental health continued to deteriorate, exacerbated by the booze. After a breakdown in 1908, he was hospitalised and underwent eight months of ‘electrification’. Upon being discharged, he returned to Norway to lead a solitary life. Newly reinvigorated, he avoided themes of despair and illness in his artwork – though his could never forget his own mortality, and painted many macabre self-portraits.
FRANCISCO GOYA 1746-1828
DISILLUSIONED, DEAF AND SEEMINGLY ON DEATH’S DOOR, GOYA’S ART TOOK A SINISTER TURN
Once the highest-ranked painter in the Spanish royal court, Francisco Goya’s work is often split into two discrete phases: the former light, bright and proving his skill and value; the latter hinting at Goya’s mental deterioration, with his paintings taking a darker turn in both tone and subject.
Having built up a sterling reputation in Spain as a portrait painter to kings and nobles, a severe recurring illness that began in 1793 changed Goya’s life forever. Suffering from tinnitus, headaches, vision problems as well as hallucinations, this first bout of ill-health ended, but one lasting ailment endured: Goya lost his hearing. From this point on, Goya’s entire personality changed and he withdrew into himself. Three more serious attacks of illness struck and he died in 1828, having spent his final years tormented by the inevitability of death and his own sanity.
Goya naturally never received a diagnosis, but modern-day researchers have suggested various ailments, from syphilis or lead poisoning from his paint, to paranoid dementia or even Susac’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can cause headaches, hearing loss and psychiatric problems.
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI 1475-1564
CHAMPIONED AS ONE OF THE GREATEST ARTISTS TO HAVE EVER LIVED, MICHELANGELO’S EXQUISITE MASTERPIECES BETRAYED THE ARTIST’S INNER TURMOIL
When Michelangelo – then a sculptor who’d made his name on such works as David and Pietà – was offered the opportunity to paint inside the Sistine Chapel, little did he realise he’d been set up by a rival. Convinced that this sculptor who’d never before painted a fresco would fail, Bramante, bitter that Michelangelo had won work he believed was rightfully his, allegedly convinced Pope Julius II to commission him. But Bramante underestimated his foe.
Instead, Michelangelo convinced the Pope to give him free rein over decorating the chapel’s ceiling.
Despite learning the new medium quickly, Michelangelo faced hurdle after hurdle; he had to pick up the art of fresco painting quickly.
Where seasons changed, mold grew on his work; and despite the sheer scale of the project, Michelangelo was determined to work alone.
In the end painting the Sistine Chapel proved almost more than Michelangelo could bear. Tucked away in the Last Judgement scene on the altar wall, Michelangelo expressed his sickness of the project in the form of an expressive self-portrait – the hanging flesh clutched by a disdainful St Bartholomew close to the centre of the scene.
Many historians and researchers question whether the determined Michelangelo suffered from OCD or even Asperger’s syndrome.
VINCENT VAN GOGH 1853-1890
RENOWNED AS ART HISTORY’S ‘MAD GENIUS’, IN REALITY VAN GOGH’S LIFE WAS DEVASTATING AND CRUEL
Flitting from one job to another, Vincent van Gogh had always shown skill in art, but he only began painting at the age of 27.
Despite this, he quickly fell in love with it, turning to booze and rationing his food in order to spend his money on painting supplies.
Travelling around his homeland of the Netherlands, as well as Belgium, van Gogh eventually ended up in Paris in 1886 with his favourite brother, Theo.
Here, van Gogh brushed shoulders with the Belle Époque’s leading figures. It was here that van Gogh met Paul Gauguin and the two began a tempestuous, conflicting friendship that came to define both their careers.
After two years in Paris, van Gogh moved to Arles on the south coast of France, where the warm climate and change of pace led the artist to embrace a brighter, bolder colour palette – though van Gogh was struggling, writing in July to Theo that “the more I am spent, ill, a broken pitcher, by so much more am I an artist.” Unknown to van Gogh, however, this picturesque life that the artist had found was hurtling to a catastrophic close. Inspired and in awe of his friend Gauguin, van Gogh encouraged him to visit Arles. In October 1888, Gauguin arrived and van Gogh’s dreams of painting together were realised. However, by December the pair’s relationship had soured and the two artists frequently quarrelled.
According to Gauguin, on 23 December van Gogh attacked him, brandishing a razor. After the confrontation, van Gogh returned to his room and took the razor to his left ear, cutting it off and bandaging the profusely bleeding wound. Raging, van Gogh wrapped the ear in paper and gifted it to a prostitute that both artists frequented. Hospitalised, van Gogh was diagnosed with “acute mania with general delirium” and in the months that followed the artist suffered from delusions and hallucinations.
By June 1889, van Gogh had voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Here, van Gogh painted arguably his most famous work of art, The Starry Night. At the start of the following year, van Gogh experienced a relapse. A year after entering the asylum, van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur- Oise to be closer to Theo. Here, the wheat fields captivated him, describing them as representing “sadness and extreme loneliness.” On 27 July, just over two weeks after van Gogh wrote of his enchantment with these vistas, the artist shot himself. Having stumbled back to his lodgings, he succumbed to his injury in the early hours of 29 July. His last words, uttered to his beloved brother on his deathbed were, “This sadness will last forever.”
It’s not entirely clear from what van Gogh suffered. Some argue porphyria, while others claim manic depression or even epilepsy. Tragically he wasn’t the only van Gogh to suffer – Theo also struggled with “melancholy” in what the brothers’ physician described as “far worse than Vincent’s.” Their younger brother Cornelius also committed suicide, and their sister, Wilhelmina, lived in an asylum for nearly 40 years.
FRANZ XAVER MESSERSCHMIDT 1736-1783
ONCE THE FAVOURED SCULPTOR OF THE HABSBURGS, A CAREER SNUB BECAME MESSERSCHMIDT’S UNDOING
Now largely forgotten, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was a leading sculptor of the 18th century, winning several commissions from the Habsburg dynasty – most notably Empress Maria Theresa – and teaching at the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. However, his mental breakdown and subsequent fall from grace has shunted him from the pages of history to its footnotes, despite his leading role not only in his contemporary society, but in the evolution of artistic movements.
One of the finest Baroque sculptors of the age, Messerschmidt had won favour among the ruling elite of Austria, and held an enviable position at the art school. When the position of professor for sculpture came up at the school, the talented sculptor put himself forward for the role, certain that his experience and favour would see him to success. What he hadn’t counted on, however, was competition. When a rumour that Messerschmidt suffered from a “confusion of the head” reached his seniors, the role was offered to Messerschmidt’s rival. Enraged, Messerschmidt left the school and Vienna and eventually settled in Pressburg, where he became a recluse and devoted himself to his ‘masterpiece’ – the so-called ‘Character Heads’.
Begun before he left Vienna, this series of busts differed from his previous commissions. Where before he’d championed the ornate Baroque, he instead embraced the simplicity of Neoclassicism; where before his busts gazed in ambivalent, aloof disinterest, he carved grotesque, gurning grimances, baring teeth, squinting eyes. What triggered Messerschmidt’s obsession with his expressive series is unknown, though the series has been interpreted as the sculptor’s descent into madness. Experiencing hallucinations and paranoia in Vienna, the solitary life served to encourage his delusions. In 1781, having met with the artist in Pressburg, Christoph Friedrich Nicolai wrote that Messerschmidt believed that he was haunted by a demon of proportion, and “in an effort to gain control over the spirit,” would pinch himself in front of a mirror and re-create the expression, creating the perfect proportion.
Over two centuries since his death, many psychologists and experts have attempted to retrospectively diagnose this ‘troubled soul’, from schizophrenia to Crohn’s disease.
What ailed Messerschmidt might never truly be known to us, but his oeuvre of ‘Character Heads’ leaves a powerful legacy for the legend of the ‘mad genius’.
ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER 1880-1938
THIS AMBITIOUS YOUNG BOHEMIAN OVERCAME A BREAKDOWN TO BECOME GERMANY’S MOST CELEBRATED ARTIST – ONLY FOR HIS WORLD TO COME CRASHING DOWN UNDER THE NAZI REGIME
When World War I broke out, German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, like many of his contemporaries, joined the war effort.
Unlike many other young men, however, Kirchner was an an unwilling volunteer, reluctantly applying to become an artillery driver.
Used to the bohemian life, Kirchner had been a founding member of Die Brücke (‘The Bridge’) whose liberated views were key in the evolution of German Expressionism. Months into his training and addicted to both alcohol and sleeping pills, Kirchner had a mental breakdown and was discharged in November 1915. Kirchner never actually served, but the horrors of war left their mark on his work, in particular in his Self-Portrait as a Soldier, depicting himself mutilated, his back turned on his old life.
Following his breakdown, Kirchner sought treatment in a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1916, where he remained for a couple of years. In 1918, he moved to a small village in the Swiss Alps. In the inter-war years, Kirchner’s evocative work gathered a keen following in his home country. But not everyone appreciated his expressive, primitive art. In the 1930s Kirchner’s works were rounded up by the Nazis and in 1937 several of his artworks were exhibited in the ‘Degenerate Art Exhibition’ in Munich. Considered a badge of pride for many artists who were repulsed by the regime, the ‘honour’ was Kirchner’s undoing. The following year he shot himself.
RICHARD DADD 1817-1886
ON A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME WORLD TOUR THIS ARTIST’S LIFE CHANGED FOREVER
On the brink of breaking onto an international stage, Richard Dadd’s promising career as an artist was cut down during the very opportunity that could’ve catapulted him to fame instead of infamy. In July 1842, after studying at the Royal Academy of Arts and co-founding an artists group called The Clique.
Dadd joined his patron Sir Thomas Phillips on a tour of the Middle East. In Egypt, Dadd began acting erratically, believing himself to be connected with the Egyptian god, Osiris. Aware of his fragile state of mind, Dadd wrote that his “imagination [was] so full of vagaries that I have really and truly doubted my own sanity”.
With Dadd clearly unwell, the tour began their return home, but in Italy Dadd became convinced that the Pope was intending to harm him and schemed to attack him, though he never fulfilled this. When he arrived back in England, his mental health continued to deteriorate and he began to consider his father as the Devil in disguise. In August 1843, he stabbed his father to death and fled to France. After attacking a passenger, Dadd was caught by the French authorities and extradited back to England. Here, Dadd was placed in Bedlam psychiatric hospital. In 1864, Dadd was moved to the newly built Broadmoor Hospital, where he died in 1886. No longer confined by the whims of patrons and buyers, Dadd’s confinement in an asylum liberated his creativity, and he continued to paint until has dying day. It’s now acknowledged that Dadd likely suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.