Link between depression and art.

[Arsen]

I have a question to ask you all.
As we all know depression, anxiety, and great pain effects and has effected the lives of many talented people and individuals, therefore I would like to pose the question to you.

Have any of you EVER heard of any case where someone was depressed, highly skilled in art, and a damn genius yet took medication and made them unable to further the craft fulfillingly?

 

[Arsen]

Okay here's the "easier" explanation of it:

WILL taking drugs to fight depression effect ones artistic abiliy?

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

Dunno.

But there is a known link between being artisitic and an alcoholic.

 

[Fairee]

No one has an answer. It's too intellectual a topic for us to discuss.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Have any of you EVER heard of any case where someone was depressed, highly skilled in art, and a damn genius yet took medication and made them unable to further the craft fulfillingly?

Yeah, me.

Anyway...

Being creative and successful requires a high degree of intelligence, lots of drive (seemingly to irrational levels), an inquiring mind and masses of work. People who are good at creative industries (although art/writing especially) tend to be very questioning, it's difficult for a person to stay happy if they need to know the why of everything.
Good art tends to contain a lot of emotion too, so it follows that people with intense emotional states would produce the best work.

 

[Arsen]

Have any of you EVER heard of any case where someone was depressed, highly skilled in art, and a damn genius yet took medication and made them unable to further the craft fulfillingly?

Yeah, me.

Anyway...

Being creative and successful requires a high degree of intelligence, lots of drive (seemingly to irrational levels), an inquiring mind and masses of work. People who are good at creative industries (although art/writing especially) tend to be very questioning, it's difficult for a person to stay happy if they need to know the why of everything.
Good art tends to contain a lot of emotion too, so it follows that people with intense emotional states would produce the best work.

So you DID take medication and it had an effect on your creative side?

 

[UpcountryGecko]

i think that to be truely great you have to have slightly abnormal thinking patterns or obssesions as if you don't how are you supposed to open up new boundaries. Just look at the sixties, the time of liberation where everyone took looks of drugs and had lots of sex. Now look at what the sixties did for music, it evolved the whole art form (yes music is art) and took it into a completely different direction. If it wasn't for hullicinagetic drugs then we wouldn't have sgt pepper, electric ladyland or the piper at the gates of dawn. I'm sorry i don't have a lot of knowledge about art in a typical sense but I think you do need to be a little crazy, look at what Van Gogh has done for art and he had to be a little mad to cut his own ear off.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Here's one example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RDCHhULhN0

One definition for genius that I've heard is that any old intelligent person can come up with a lot of ideas but it takes a genius to quickly shoot down all the ones that are bad until only the good remain. That can be overdone though, like Kafka wanting all of his manuscripts to be burnt and left unpublished after he died.

 

[Woundingisfun]

I think there is a connection between art and an early death. Don't know why, but it just is.

 

[Novania]

Were they playing video games?

 

[Selvalros]

People who are intellectually gifted often find themselves as being socially abnormal. This is simply because they think differently than other people. This can often cause severe depression and loneliness in a person because they often feel that there is no hope for anyone to understand them. People are often bored by those with extreme intellects in the respect that they are often more interested in learning or creating than having what the average person considers to be "fun".

Now, to your question. I honestly don't know. Some people may gain inspiration from their depression while other peoples depression may just be a product of their social abnormality and loneliness. You need to ask yourself what, if anything, your depression does for you. If it is an inspiration then you have to weigh the pro's and con's of taking anti-depressants. If your depression is simply a side effect of loneliness than I would say that getting rid of it wouldn't affect your art at all, however I am hardly an expert in this field. I honestly think that you should just try to figure it out on your own via trial and error, find what works best for you.

 

[hannahdonno]

When I went through a bad phase a few months back, I wrote hell amounts of poetry and stories, however, when I got back on track, I stopped, mainly because the creativity was an outlet and being content with my life once more, I didn't need an outlet so I felt it unessacary doing sometihng which I considered to be linked to bad times.

So I think it is more of feeling the need to do artisitic tasks when feeling low, rather than them being better quality.

 

[fix-the-spade]

So you DID take medication and it had an effect on your creative side?

Yes, Citalopram for five months.

The effect can best be described as putting a bulletproof glass panel between your imagination and ability. The ideas still come but the effect on your cognitive abilities and mood is such that you cannot transfer them to paper.
It's suppose to be a mood levelling drug, but for me at any rate mood levelling translated out to 'completely numb'. Which is no fun at all.

 

[Lukirre]

I know of someone who fits that image, the only exception being that she still feels as though she fulfills her art-related needs.

 

[meatloaf231]

Crazy and depressed people have all kinds of funky emotions a-blusterin' around in their heads, and art is a splendid medium for expressing said emotions. When normal/sane people make art, there's often less emotive expression.

Basically point I'm trying to get to here is that people who aren't mentally stable often make better art.

 

[Elexia]

I read somewhere that apparantly artistic/creative people can become incredibly introverted and suffer from certain types of social disabilities depending on their type of art.

I'm a creative writer, a poet and playwright to be exact, and I won't say my mind's always a bed of roses. I get depression out of the blue for no reason and it gets bad to the point I don't leave my house and refuse to eat. All I'd do is write. I've never taken medication for depression, I don't know why I just never have. I find the stuff I write when depressed is the funniest and humerous stuff I could ever write, or I'll read and reread things I've written. It's a battle that can last half a year but sooner or later I come out of it.

I've heard about how medication can affect someone, and I know a person who is a visual artist on perscription drugs for depression. It doesn't seem to impede her too much. Maybe it depends on the person.

 

[Higurashi]

Of course it will, if you gain inspiration from the sadness. Many do, because they are strong feelings that affect you and are also complex with many aspects and nuances. Happiness is a very simple feeling, so most delve deeper to find inspiration. Complex principles are also much used, but everyone has feelings that can be used in art, and are being used in art.

 

[TheIr0nMike]

Yes, it does. I have taken some anti-depression drugs, I can tell you it does effect you negatively. Same goes with most prescription drugs. Also, thats why you see many artists and geniuses go insane, get addicted to hard drugs, develop some mental illness, and even commit suicide.

 

[Dr Spaceman]

I watched a documentary recently about Mark Rothko (one of the greatest artists of the past century) and his story was a classic tale of the tortured artist: Being a person who possesses great skill, has some incredible personal truth to reveal, and yet cannot perfectly express that truth. Rothko literally falls apart and implodes, killing himself shortly after completing one of his greatest works (the Rothko Chapel in Houston), because he could no longer accept the treatment of his art or the direction the art world seemed to be moving in.

He shunned all attempts at saving his life, eschewing heart medication and anti-depressants, and died just as the world was really beginning to understand him.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Yes. Art comes from extreme emotion and felling. If your art comes from depression, then removing that depression removes the source of your art. Of course removing that depression might enable art from happiness.