Van Gogh began to show signs of psychotic attacks and delusions in late 1888, the same year in which he cut off his left earlobe. In 1889, Van Gogh voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Remy, France in which he made his best and most famous works of art. 1899 was the year Van Gogh suffered the most from his illness and the severity of his mental disorder became more intense until July 1890 when he shot himself in the chest and passed away. Van Gogh was plagued by psychological illnesses throughout his whole life. It is expected, today, that he had bipolar disorder, but this cannot be confirmed (Van Gogh 14).
Picasso, a man of many talents, also had mental illness symptoms. His work is thought to have changed drastically after the suicide of his close friend, which left him in a somber state of mind (Avison, McLeod, and Pescosolido 98; Gilot and Lake 29; Berger 61; Gardner 201). The period in which Picasso sank into a deep depression was from 1901 to 1904, his so-called “Blue Period” in which used blue tones to dominate his paintings (Griskevicius, Cialdini, and Kenrick 71; Morris 12; O'Brian 124; Stein 77; Sussman, 21). Unlike Van Gogh, Picasso was not someone who had dealt with threatening psychological issues his whole life, although due to loss and day-to-day struggles, he eventually fell into a state of depression and intense anxiety. The current paper will primarily focus on paintings during the two periods of times previously mentioned (i.e., 1889-1890 and “The Blue Period”) that will then be compared to both artist's previous works to properly evaluate the research question developed for the current work: What was the impact of mental ill-health upon the work of Van Gogh from 1889 to 1890 and Picasso's 'Blue Period' lasting from 1901 to 1904?
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Mental Illness and Art
Creativity takes on numerous influences. Artistic expression, for example, results from one’s life experiences, mood, and other factors (Andreasen 39). Mental illness can serve as a source of creative expression for many different reasons. For example, mental illness can disrupt one’s ability to create artistic works by making it more difficult to concentrate, distracting an individual, and giving an individual an unrealistic idea about the work that one is doing. But mental illness can also lead to inspiration and influence the content of work. Moreover, there are even cases in which mental illness and mood can change the colors that one uses when creating artistic works. From this perspective, there may be both overt and subtle impacts of mental illness on art.
One of the primary ways that mental illness can impact art is by mood and energy alteration. One’s mood is dictated by both short-term and long-term factors. In the short term, sleep, food intake, recent physical exertion, and water intake can all impact mood. In the long-term mental illness, physical illness, stress, and anxiety can impact mood. While most mood factors tend to be acute, mental illness can have lasting impacts on mood and even distort one’s perception of reality in such a way that leads to paranoia, fear, sadness, anger, and other moods that impact creative expression. Depression, for example, generates feelings of sadness, worthlessness, and apathy, potentially altering creative expression and decreasing one’s ability to do work, including creative work. Bipolar disorder, in contrast, includes alternating periods of mania and depression. While depressive periods can lead to less artistic work being created, manic moods can increase work as individuals function on less sleep, have more confidence, and act rashly. The most direct effect of mental illness on artistic work is in the work’s subject and content. An individual with a mental illness with symptoms including delusion, paranoia, and hallucinations may feature content and subjects that are unusual, bizarre, or reflective of irrational fears. However, an individual with depression may be more likely to represent sadness and pain in works, as such emotions are more reflective of their mental state and mood.
Van Gogh
Van Gogh was a prolific painter in his lifetime (Van Heugten 81). He produced hundreds if not more than a thousand works, many of which were part of major collections. During his lifetime, Van Gogh was famous for his paintings. However, he would also become famous for bouts of psychosis that would leave him unaware of the apparent violent outbursts that he had. In one case, Van Gogh was working from hear when he began to hear voices. Van Gogh claimed that he was being abused by these voices. That night, he would sever his ear with a razor blade and be transported to a nearby hospital for delirium. Van Gogh did not recall severing his ear, indicating that he may have been in a state of mental illness, albeit an acute state. Van Gogh would go on to suffer a similar breakdown and expressed deep sadness and anger during different times in his life. At one point, Van Gogh described his feelings as being extremely sad and mournful. There are myriad explanations for his undiagnosed mental illness, including a lack of sleep and loss of family and loved ones. However, Van Gogh also appeared to be strongly impacted by his relationships, including a failed engagement, which may have contributed to the stress and anxiety he felt.
Van Gogh’s “Sorrowing Old Man at Eternity’s Gate,” completed in 1890, is a clear example of subject and form being influenced by Van Gogh’s mental health condition. The work predominantly features an old man who is crying on a chair. The subject in the work is isolated. He has no one else around him. The old man is also dressed in all blue, indicative of sadness and pain. The central focus of the character in mourning strongly reflects the intense sorrow and pain felt by Van Gogh, as described above. Depending on the particular mental illness that Van Gogh had, there are a variety of explanations for the intensely negative emotions conveyed by Van Gogh in this work. In particular, Van Gogh may have had some form of depression. At the very least, it is clear that he had severely depressed states. He may have also had manic or delirious states as well. The precision of the painting and the clear subject matter suggest that Van Gogh had a clear mind at the time of constructing the work.
The color and lines in the work may also contribute to feelings of sadness and misery conveyed in the work. However, unlike Picasso’s melancholy reflected in his works during the target period, the importance of color and line in this work must be understood in the context of Van Gogh’s other works. In particular, Van Gogh’s works tend to be at least somewhat abstract. It is common for Van Gogh to utilize distortion to obscure certain aspects of his works. But there is nothing obscured in this work. Van Gogh was very precise in his use of lines in the work. While the work maintains Van Gogh’s brush style (i.e., large brush strokes), the lines are clear and clean. The chair is composed of relatively straight and clean lines, leading to the composition of a chair that is unambiguously a chair and is in no way obscured. But more importantly, the sullen figure who is crying on the chair is displayed with clarity. Van Gogh in no way obscured the crying old man who was dressed in blue. This strongly promotes the notion that Van Gogh wanted to focus on the figure and what is meant for the work, rather than including any abstraction. This is similar to Van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait” of the same year and “On the Road to Tarascon” of 1888.
Picasso
Picasso’s “The Blue Room” demonstrates the deep melancholy felt by Picasso during the blue period. Blue is the predominant color used in the work. The blues used by Picasso represent the feelings of being blue, meaning that one is saddened. Research indicates that when individuals feel saddened, they may be more likely to see the world in darker shades of colors and emphasize certain colors over others (Van Heugten 26). Thus, it may be the case that individuals who are going through major sadness or depression, caused by mental illness, see more blues. These may be represented in the “The Blue Room” prominently. For example, the sheets in the background are lined with blue. Often, these lines would be drawn in darker colors to accentuate the line and distinguish between objects, in this case, the bed and the back. By using blues in black and gray, Picasso may have been reflecting the world as he sees it: with more blue. Similarly, the shadows under the bed and below the table are a deep shade of blue, not dark enough to represent black even. Again, this is a case in which Picasso appears to be substituting blue shades for darkening. In this case, the blue shades are very vivid. The paintings hung on the wall in the background also predominantly feature blue. One appears to be of an outdoor setting in which the blue sea is a very deep blue shade and is prominently featured in the work. In the other painting on the wall, there is a woman in a dress against a very deep blue background. The shadow under her skirt is also blue. Finally, the single source of light in the painting, a window on the far left side of the painting, has blue outlines. The walls also appear white in the background, but this is only because of the intense blues present throughout the work. In reality, the white are light blues with low levels of saturation. The predominant use of blue in this work may be a direct result of the mental illness and feelings of depression felt by Van Gogh.
“The Blue Room” also features a subject and form that strongly suggests a period of melancholy. The figure in the painting on the wall is a blond woman who is in a pose that is pleasant and unassuming. If this was the only figure in the work, then the content of the work may be assumed to be cheery. However, this figure starkly contrasts with the figure in the foreground. In addition, the figure of the woman in the background painting has no facial features. Picasso included no details about the figure’s face. This results in a figure assuming a pleasant pose, but not showing a positive expression in this pose, reducing the positive impact of the figure in the work. But the major rebuke of pleasantness in the work stems from the figure in the foreground. This figure is of a woman who appears to be bathing in a container just in front of the bed. The woman has similar blonde hair to the one in the picture on the wall but is slumped over and her hair is tied back. Her alabaster skin reflects the blue in the room, while there are shades of yellow on the figure, which may serve as a complement to the blues in the work or may reflect the sun shining in through the window. This may be a case of the woman in the foreground representing a grownup version of the woman in the background picture. In growing up, she may have become depressed or saddened, directly reflecting the feelings of Picasso during this period. “The Blue Room,” then, is emblematic of the blue period of Picasso. The painting itself predominantly features blue and has content depicting what can be interpreted as a sad state and even features blue in the title.
Picasso’s “La Vie” of 1903 also exhibits strong melancholy. Schneider conducted a psychoanalytic analysis of Picasso’s work, concluding that much of Picasso’s work during his blue period featured violence and suffering predominantly. Schneider states:
Here, it seems to me, is the pictured note of exile and of grieving. The pointing finger of the bewildered and terrified male shouts incredulity and the smaller background figures accentuate the sense of Paradise Lost. But the striking thing is the hard face of the mother and her dark garment in contrast to the contemplative acceptance of the nude bride. The rival child, a product of creative love, withers the woman as though the greatest violence had been done to her. Hence the hostility of her look. After what we know from Minotauromachy, this is a logical consequence of the sexual mutilation the shocked child conceives to be the essence of creation. It is as though the painting said in part accepting, despite everything, the meaning of love: 'There is no end to this passion, this despair, this grief, this violent child.' It must be remembered that Picasso painted it at a time of great poverty, still unrecognized, still a failure. (Schneider 92).
This analysis is confirmed by an examination of the painting, which is in a blue hue and features background paintings of individuals who are in a state of sadness and seeking comfort. The figures in the foreground also express strong sadness and pain. The painting echoes other works by Picasso around the same time. For example, Picasso’s “Tragedy” depicts figures in mourning on a shore. The entire work is in shades of blue, further demonstrating the associations between sadness, pain, and blue.
Conclusion
Van Gogh and Picasso both faced mental illness symptoms that may have impacted their works. Both artists turned to hues of blue when they were going through periods of particular melancholy and depression. However, Picasso expressed his pain directly in the form of portraying suffering across a variety of contexts, Van Gogh con
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