In an interview about her deceased husband Jan Wolkers (Verbraak, NRC October 21 2017), Karina Wolkers shows her admiration for Jan and how his spirit is still around. She also mentions that everything had to go his way, ‘back in the days I was not allowed to even prepare a cup of coffee. Everything precisely had to go his way.‘ At times she even had to be present in situations where Jan had sex with other women. She seems to be struggling with the idea that Jan was not always the mature person he was, when he created the works many people appreciate from him. Eventually Karina returns to her earlier perspective: ‘everything he did was creating. It was all inseparably intertwined with his artistic talent’.

According to Samuel Freedman (1985) the vast majority of creative artists are centred and sane. He thinks the tormented artists - like Vincent van Gogh - and not the untroubled ones - like Peter Paul Rubens - provide food for ‘tabloid notoriety and romantic embellishment’.

‘Creation is a constant act of balancing the dark side that allows introspection with the brighter one that turns raw material into finished product’ (Freedman 1985).

Camille Claudel had an older brother who died very young. She had an ambiguous relationship with her family members and her mother could never show love for her (Dieguez 2011). She started a relationship at age 17 with Rodin being 44. This fuelled her inspiration. After the breakup she got worse and barricaded herself in her apartment. She developed delusions. In the sculpture: ‘The imploring woman’ she expresses the theme of a lover who is being pulled away by another woman. Things got worse and she was hospitalized. Despite the options that were offered her to create new work, for 30 years she didn’t produce anything until she died (Dieguez, 2011).

One of the interviewees (see supplement 3: Response on interview questions) mentioned: ‘It [personal problems] made me write a lot of material though so I also got something out of it’.

Vincent van Gogh lost his ear while being is a state of despair. Hugh Welchman, the director of the movie about Vincent Van Gogh: Loving Vincent (2017), together with researcher Tejo Middeldorp (Van Gogh museum) were doing research about the famous painter as a preparation for the movie. One of the myths he tries to refute is that without his mental struggles Van Gogh could not have created such genial works. Welchman (in NRC October 25 2017, C5) claims ‘He prepared for weeks about what he wanted to paint. Van Gogh had weird attacks […] He only worked in those clear periods’.

Chapter 3.4

Art and mental health

There are many examples of artists leading a troubled life. Much research has been done on several aspects of mental health in relation to creativity. There is evidence for connections between creativity and bi-polar disorder, ADHD and depression (Abraham in Kaufman et al. 2014). Unhealthy life styles, including alcoholism and drug abuse, seem to occur more in artistic circles.

Creativity tends to go along with deficits in regard to forms of inhibition. There are many examples of artists who share high levels of creativity with suffering from depression. An extra complicating factor in this ‘troubled life’ aspect of being an artist is that part of it stems from ideas that originated from the Romantic Movement, where madness was considered to be a necessary part of the ‘Himmel hoch jauchzend, zum Tode betrübt’ aspect of artistic expression. This also created the idea of the artist that is not fully understood or appreciated during his lifetime. Nathalie Heinig (1996, p. 140) claims that the legend of Vincent Van Gogh became one of a troubled artist who gave the world great paintings but paid the heavy price of society being ignorant and not interested. According to Heinig we should reconsider the notion that abnormality and obscurity during an artist's lifetime is a guarantee of true genius.

Kinney, Richards (in Kaufman 2014) claim unconventional ways of thinking should go along with ‘strong executive functions that make adaptive use of this creative ideation’ (p. 296). The difference between creativity and mental illness seems to boil down to how much control one has over their mental wanderings, taking advantage of bizarre thoughts instead of them being overwhelming and create chaos or catastrophes (Swain & Swain in Kaufman et al. 2014, p. 139). This is where having some inner dialogue helps. According to Alice Miller (1983, p. 303) ‘the source of creativity lies in the creative person’s capacity for suffering, not in his or her neurosis’. Like mentioned earlier (see 3.2: Art and inner dialogue), even struggling with life can sometimes promote inner dialogue unless it creates an overwhelming condition. Interesting to note in this respect is the inverted U-shape hypothesis (Richards, Kinney, Lunde et al. 1988) which proposes that increasing levels of psychological traits that are associated with bi-polar disorders will tend to have a positive effect on creativity, but up to a certain point, beyond which further increases will actually begin to interfere with creativity.

In the case of those particularly gifted creators who do have a history of severe mental illness, their most creative periods tend to occur at times when they perceive either mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Besides that, research evidence suggests that appropriate treatment is likely to enhance rather than diminish creativity (Kinney, 1992).

In a description of qualities that need to coexist in an artist called The Precarious triad Djikic & Oatley (Kaufman et al. 2014, p. 284) sum up tree qualities an artist needs in order to make successful works. Finalizing this chapter I would like to present the essence of their description, because it summarizes most of the things I presented before.

Sensitivity

For artists, the intensity of emotional life both serves as a fuel to their artistic production and leaves them more vulnerable to the potential of mental illness.

Artistic compulsion

Djikic & Oatley claim artists require the quality of feeling an urge to explore emotions through an artistic medium. The fact that art starts being impelled by an emotion does not mean the focus of a work of art should itself be an emotion. The work of art is a transformation of the experience prompted by the emotions into an external object, trying to understand it (see 3.1.2: Addressing the listener/viewer). As such it can be ‘offered as a gift to others who can themselves take part in the art bringing it alive for themselves’ (p. 285). The listener/viewer himself becomes an artist, even if it is not in the way the original artist intended (see 3.1.3: The active role of the listener/viewer). Being able to externalize means the work of art can be based on mental schemas from earlier in life, but if the life event is too severe, ruminating could make it pathological and keep a person dwelling in the anguish of the state itself (see 3.2: Art and inner dialogue).

Lack of self-deception 

Djikic & Oatley define self-deception as any self-defence that distorts perception and comprehension of reality to protect the psychological stability of the self (p. 288, also see 2.3: Mental health, mentalizing). It is necessary for artists to be truthful, not self-deceptive, in that specific aspect of the self related to the domain of their art (see 3.1.2 Addressing the listener/viewer). Even more important, it would be of no significant interest to anyone else, it doesn’t communicate (see 3.2: Art and inner dialogue). This does not mean that the artist cannot be self-deceptive about aspects of the self and the world that are not related to the art, or while not creating art or maybe good art (see 3.3: The artist in reactive mode).

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Barantes-Vidal (in Kaufman et al. 2014) claims that exposure to a stressful context during childhood like interpersonal trauma seems to play a role in both creativity and increased risk for psychoses. He concludes that some healthy early relationships within the context help to develop ‘some positive internal working model of the self and others, which would facilitate the channelling of vulnerability into creativity’ (p. 191) (also see 2.2: Scripts).

Having a personal or a family history of mental illness tends to affect someone’s thinking in an unconventional direction that can be a source of inspiration or giving unconventional ideas.

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Image 12: Camille Claudel: The imploring woman (1898).

Source: Photo © ADAGP, Paris, 2012

Chapter 3.4

Art and mental health

There are many examples of artists leading a troubled life. Much research has been done on several aspects of mental health in relation to creativity. There is evidence for connections between creativity and bi-polar disorder, ADHD and depression (Abraham in Kaufman et al. 2014). Unhealthy life styles, including alcoholism and drug abuse, seem to occur more in artistic circles.

Creativity tends to go along with deficits in regard to forms of inhibition. There are many examples of artists who share high levels of creativity with suffering from depression. An extra complicating factor in this ‘troubled life’ aspect of being an artist is that part of it stems from ideas that originated from the Romantic Movement, where madness was considered to be a necessary part of the ‘Himmel hoch jauchzend, zum Tode betrübt’ aspect of artistic expression. This also created the idea of the artist that is not fully understood or appreciated during his lifetime. Nathalie Heinig (1996, p. 140) claims that the legend of Vincent Van Gogh became one of a troubled artist who gave the world great paintings but paid the heavy price of society being ignorant and not interested. According to Heinig we should reconsider the notion that abnormality and obscurity during an artist's lifetime is a guarantee of true genius. 

Barantes-Vidal (in Kaufman et al. 2014) claims that exposure to a stressful context during childhood like interpersonal trauma seems to play a role in both creativity and increased risk for psychoses. He concludes that some healthy early relationships within the context help to develop ‘some positive internal working model of the self and others, which would facilitate the channelling of vulnerability into creativity’ (p. 191) (also see 2.2: Scripts).

Having a personal or a family history of mental illness tends to affect someone’s thinking in an unconventional direction that can be a source of inspiration or giving unconventional ideas.

Kinney, Richards (in Kaufman 2014) claim unconventional ways of thinking should go along with ‘strong executive functions that make adaptive use of this creative ideation’ (p. 296). The difference between creativity and mental illness seems to boil down to how much control one has over their mental wanderings, taking advantage of bizarre thoughts instead of them being overwhelming and create chaos or catastrophes (Swain & Swain in Kaufman et al. 2014, p. 139). This is where having some inner dialogue helps. According to Alice Miller (1983, p. 303) ‘the source of creativity lies in the creative person’s capacity for suffering, not in his or her neurosis’. Like mentioned earlier (see 3.2: Art and inner dialogue), even struggling with life can sometimes promote inner dialogue unless it creates an overwhelming condition. Interesting to note in this respect is the inverted U-shape hypothesis (Richards, Kinney, Lunde et al. 1988) which proposes that increasing levels of psychological traits that are associated with bi-polar disorders will tend to have a positive effect on creativity, but up to a certain point, beyond which further increases will actually begin to interfere with creativity.

In the case of those particularly gifted creators who do have a history of severe mental illness, their most creative periods tend to occur at times when they perceive either mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Besides that, research evidence suggests that appropriate treatment is likely to enhance rather than diminish creativity (Kinney, 1992).

In a description of qualities that need to coexist in an artist called The Precarious triad Djikic & Oatley (Kaufman et al. 2014, p. 284) sum up tree qualities an artist needs in order to make successful works. Finalizing this chapter I would like to present the essence of their description, because it summarizes most of the things I presented before.

Sensitivity

For artists, the intensity of emotional life both serves as a fuel to their artistic production and leaves them more vulnerable to the potential of mental illness.

Artistic compulsion

Djikic & Oatley claim artists require the quality of feeling an urge to explore emotions through an artistic medium. The fact that art starts being impelled by an emotion does not mean the focus of a work of art should itself be an emotion. The work of art is a transformation of the experience prompted by the emotions into an external object, trying to understand it (see 3.1.2: Addressing the listener/viewer). As such it can be ‘offered as a gift to others who can themselves take part in the art bringing it alive for themselves’ (p. 285). The listener/viewer himself becomes an artist, even if it is not in the way the original artist intended (see 3.1.3: The active role of the listener/viewer). Being able to externalize means the work of art can be based on mental schemas from earlier in life, but if the life event is too severe, ruminating could make it pathological and keep a person dwelling in the anguish of the state itself (see 3.2: Art and inner dialogue).

Lack of self-deception 

Djikic & Oatley define self-deception as any self-defence that distorts perception and comprehension of reality to protect the psychological stability of the self (p. 288, also see 2.3: Mental health, mentalizing). It is necessary for artists to be truthful, not self-deceptive, in that specific aspect of the self related to the domain of their art (see 3.1.2 Addressing the listener/viewer). Even more important, it would be of no significant interest to anyone else, it doesn’t communicate (see 3.2: Art and inner dialogue). This does not mean that the artist cannot be self-deceptive about aspects of the self and the world that are not related to the art, or while not creating art or maybe good art (see 3.3: The artist in reactive mode).