A Penny For Your Thoughts, A Dime For Your Affliction
words by Rylee Miller
★
“If you enjoy busy work, get an office job; if you like kids, try teaching; and if you’re debilitated by mental illness, become an artist.”
To view mental health in this manner is not just uncompassionate, — it’s wrong. Yet, it is not uncommon that we frequently come across article after article that reads: “The Link Between Creativity and Mental Illness” or “Top 10 Tortured Artists.” With examples like Vincent Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath, it’s easy to see how, in art, the public perception of mental illness is that it positively affects creativity. While it’s empowering to see these artists create something beautiful while forced to look in the face of something ugly — in the form of their mental illness — it has also led many to consider mental illness as a character trait that carries profitable artistic potential. Edvard Munch said, “I can not get rid of my illness, for there is a lot in my art that exists only because of them.”
Munch was a painter, and because of this, and because of his creativity, he was able to portray his anxieties through his work. People seem to twist this idea around; though the difference in the sentence, "He was an artist and so he could express his mental turmoil," and "He was an artist because he expressed his mental turmoil," is slight, they have immensely different meanings.
Where one credits him as a talented individual, the other implies that his mental illness is what gave him such talent. While Edvard Munch himself believed the latter was true, the real issue lies in how this concept has been thrust upon all artists under all mediums.
This way of thinking turns art from a form of expression into a weapon against its own creator. Striking down upon those suffering and demanding them to slice open their torment to dissect and splay out for all to see. Artist's mental breaks have become art pieces in themselves. Louis Wain's and Francis Goya's late work is relished as it gives the viewer a chance to gawk at their afflictions without guilt. The unraveling of one's mental state is immensely entertaining to many, and it's excused morally under the guise of art appreciation.
We've formed a narrative around these idealized tortured artists, painted them as misunderstood beings holding some knowledge or world lens unbeknownst to the common man — as though mental disorder grants you sage wisdom in return for emotional unrest. Hannah Gadsby, comedian, art historian, and chef, best vocalizes this sentiment in her special Nanette, where she says, "This romanticizing of mental illness is ridiculous. It is not a ticket to genius. It's a ticket to fucking nowhere."
“There is no beauty within mental illness —
there is only beauty in spite of it.”
There isn’t much proving that artistic ability and mental illness is linked past lackluster anecdotal evidence and half-baked research that can't prove one way or another if the two are connected. With no proof, the only thing such claims as those achieve is creating yet another falsehood around mental illness that harms those afflicted by it. To convince the mentally ill that their ailment positively affects them in some way is convincing them to never try to be healthy. Artists who are unwell expect to seek help while being convinced that by doing so they will lose the ability to express themselves creatively. Bipolar disorder does not create authors: it forms pitfalls of depressive and manic mood swings. Schizophrenia doesn't make prolific painters: it conjures up delusions of grandeur and extreme paranoia. There is no beauty within mental illness — there is only beauty in spite of it. Artists living with the difficulties it places on their lives have pressed on, creating wonderful works of art. These works speak volumes on their resilience, rather than their ailment.
We've created martyrs out of those struggling under mental illness, and reduced their struggles to “the creative process.” Hannah Gadsby asks in her routine, "Creativity means you must suffer? That is the burden of creativity?" And for many, it is. Breaking free from the mindset that the best work comes from the darkest places is a barrier within itself.
One artist who expresses her feelings towards healing in this regard is the author Anne Lamott. During her role in the show and podcast, The Midnight Gospel, she says, "By the time I was sober I had four books out already, I had this career — and I felt terror that if I stopped drinking I would never write again because I needed the misery." She continues with, "That's one of the lies of the disease, you know, or of the ego that if you are well and if you're happy the jig's up." This rings true for many who feel their suffering gives their work character-but it doesn’t, it gives nothing at all.
We've turned art into a transaction, where the price of artistic integrity is mental wellbeing. We have placed immense value on the creative expression of mental illness. Picasso's blue period, Francis Goya's black paintings, and Louis Wain's psychedelic cats — these paintings are all widely famous, have been picked apart, and manipulated — all to give us a window into the sick, dark period of these men's lives. Lives we know nothing about. Would the last paintings of Goya's life be so renowned if it weren't for the disturbing imagery and context? Of course, I can't be sure, but I think it's safe to say we've collectively put extreme merit in the art that lets us intrude on the darkest parts of the creator's mind. Misery loves company, and we've made a friend out of the paintings that let us know the artist was in pain.
This isn't all to say the expression of negative emotion or mental illness is unwelcome. In fact, it's incredibly healthy. It also isn't to say that these artists created their best work whilst in the worst throws of their afflictions. A sizable amount of Vincent Van Gogh's work was of, and while seeing, psychiatrists who were all treating and medicating him. Hannah Gadsby makes a great point of this and to quote her once more, in reference to why we have such great work like The Sunflowers, "It's not because Vincent Van Gogh suffered, it's because Vincent Van Gogh had a brother who loved him."
Whether the subject of the art, in whatever medium, is about something positively affecting you, negatively affecting you, or even not affecting you at all, it doesn't affect your talents. The technique and innovation of expression is something much more than the subject you're trying to express. Expression in art is what makes it valuable and worthwhile to the artist, but not because it lets the viewer know of all the hardships or torment the piece conveys, but because of the passion and practice put into it.
We believe because so many talented artists chose to express their illness and innermost thoughts through art it means that all mental illness must make one a better artist. But instead, perhaps, they all chose expression through visual media because of how grueling it was to talk about their mental health straightforwardly. Could it be possible we've created an environment where the only way to truly feel safe expressing how you feel is through layers of nuance and vague imagery? Because why else would we have "vent art"? For many, a terrible occurrence in their life means typing through tears a short poem in their phone notes. The depiction of mental health through art is healthy, and a wonderful outlet, but we must be careful not to use it to excuse avoiding healthy coping mechanisms such as seeking professional help and establishing a support system. The notes in a song and the strokes of a brush are little benefactors in the bettering of one's health, as lovely as they are. And as much as we encourage the expression of emotions through a creative lens, we must also incentivize such expression through a lens of communication and disclosure.
“Misery loves company, and we've made a friend out of the paintings that let us know the artist was in pain.”
This idea is even briefly touched on in the show Bojack Horseman. The episode “Good Damage” follows Diane Nguyen, an author trying to write a book around her hardships in life, including how she’s been affected by depression and a broken family. The episode portrays the issues with forcing oneself to express traumas and damages to one’s life. When she isn’t motivated to write, Diane blames antidepressants for affecting her ability to do so. The fear of change and being fundamentally altered by medication for the worse has been ingrained in our minds. This is especially true for artists who believe their work will be affected negatively by trying to better themselves mentally. Not only that, but that mental illness is something to force production out of. When asked why she is dead-set on writing a book she doesn't enjoy writing Diane replies, "because if I don't, that means all the damage I got isn't good damage, it's just damage."
A terrible lie we've convinced ourselves of is that there is such a thing as "good damage," as though creators can in any way benefit from mental illness. There are no upsides to a mental disorder. There are only brief moments where the dread and the turmoil is less present. In no way did Van Gogh, Williams, or Plath benefit from their illness. No, instead, they were shot, hung, and poisoned, all at their own hand. I can not be inspired by the stories that outlines their pain, I can only lament it and appreciate and respect the beautiful things they’ve created while bearing such a heavy weight on their psyche. There is absolutely nothing to gain from mental illness, but there's everything to lose to it. It could be that that line of thinking stems from the inability to kill your heroes. We see a distinguished individual and think, well we must be cut from a different cloth, you must be built differently to achieve greatness. Or for some, they're able to see themselves in these artists' ailments. No matter the cause, it is a dangerous romanticization of mental illness.
To all artists, the state of your mental health does not dictate the quality of that you create. Mental illness is not a credential for artistry, diagnoses are not turned in for art degrees. You've put in the time, the effort, and the passion into your work and the chemical balance of your brain cannot hold a candle to that fact. Trauma does not create an artist, but these artists have created something out of trauma. And that is all because of talent, not torment.
