IN PICTURES
TORTURED ARTISTS: ADDRESSING MENTAL ILLNESS THROUGH ART Several notable artists with mental illnesses have expressed their thoughts and moods in their artwork. Here, International Innovation presents five pieces from one of the most famous artists in history, Vincent van Gogh, illuminating the ways in which his own battle with depression, paralysing anxiety and potentially even bipolar disorder shone through his brushstrokes
1. SORROW 1882 The feelings of sadness and isolation that van Gogh felt in his own life can be seen even in his early work as an artist. In 1882, he drew Sorrow, a piece that depicts a 32-year-old pregnant woman, Clasina Maria Hoornik, wallowing in sadness. Van Gogh often referred to this drawing as one of his best pieces, and in a letter he wrote in July 1882 he states: “I want to make drawings that touch some people. Sorrow is a small beginning [...] there is at least something directly from my own heart”.
2. SKELETON 1886 Van Gogh’s depressed nature and obsession with death is apparent in many of his works, including his 1886 piece Skeleton. In addition to painting his depression, van Gogh often wrote about his feelings in letters to his brother Theo: “I am so angry with myself because I cannot do what I should like to do, and at such a moment one feels as if one were lying bound hand and foot at the bottom of a deep dark well, utterly helpless”. Credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
4. THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 1890
Credit: Garman Ryan Collection
Van Gogh’s mania and anxiety shines through several of his latter works leading up to his suicide in 1890. One piece where these feelings are particularly poignant is The Raising of Lazarus. Van Gogh was staying in a mental hospital in Saint-Rémy when he painted this work, which depicts the biblical figure of Lazarus just after he had risen from the dead. Some think Lazarus’ face is a self-portrait, because of the beard.
3. THE STARRY NIGHT 1889 In the aftermath of a breakdown that resulted in the self mutilation of his left ear, on 8 May 1889 van Gogh voluntarily entered the asylum of St Paul near Saint-Rémy. As a patient, he created a series of paintings and drawings from the asylum grounds and his window. It was here that he painted one of his most famous works of art, The Starry Night, a piece often described as being hallucinatory in nature. Credit: Museum of Modern Art
Credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
5. WHEAT FIELD WITH CROWS 1890 Wheat Field with Crows depicts a dramatic, cloudy sky filled with crows flying over a wheat field. The piece evokes a sense of isolation and confusion, which is heightened by a central path leading nowhere and by the uncertain direction of the flight of the crows. It is one of the last paintings – if not the last one – he created before his suicide on 29 July 1890. Credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
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