CONTENT WARNING:

The following topics may not be sutiable for a general audience. If themes of mental issues such as dementia or schizophrenia, or creepy art makes you uncomfortable, this is a warning to not read this post.

Also, I am not a certified doctor, phycologist or mental health worker. This post is simply for the service of analysis, discussion and personal opinion.

With that being said, you are welcome to read:

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Our eyes are yet to open.

As I found myself strolling through the screen of my social media pages, I came across a picture that lingered in my mind long after I saw it. This picture is a comparison of two self portraits that famed painter Pablo Picasso made, one at the beginning of his artistic career, the other near his end. And there is a large hard contrast between the two. 

There is a clear divide between the two. 

It is commonly known that Picasso often painted in abstract cubism, specially later in his life. He would see the world in his own surrealistic way and paint it accordingly. However, there is a hard difference between the paintings that he did and this. 

Let’s look at this example. While still somewhat the same shape, it’s colorful, there is life to it. A sense of ease even. I don’t get that from the last self portrait. 

When I look at the last self portrait, I get a sense of dread, a sense of despair. I see a man who was drowning in his own darkness and the only thing that he could see was the eyes of the abyss staring back at him. Those large, haunting, unblinking eyes.

Then, a line crosses my mind, from an old video game I have written about before. My mind turned back to Bloodborne and the sentence “Our eyes are yet to open.” and it was as if all of a sudden, it clicked. 

Something that should be known about that last self portrait of Picasso is that he was suffering alzheimers when he made it. The vision of the world forever distorted to him. Out of curiosity, and because I had heard before about many similar cases to him, I started looking into other people with mental ailments that had affected their view of the world and were talented enough to paint what they saw.  

It was strange to say the least.

Let’s start off with another case of alzheimer: 

WIlliam Utermohlen was an artist diagnosed with dementia in 1995. Before his death, he decided to draw self portraits of himself each year to show the deterioration of his mind. Here are the first and the last. 

I will also link the article where you can find the rest of the paintings, as well as a good explanation of the works themselves: https://www.boredpanda.com/alzheimers-disease-self-portrait-paintings-william-utermohlen/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic 

The following have less case studies that I found in 5 minutes, but still prove a point.

1. Depression, painted by Jacob Lawrance as he struggled with his search of self and identity.

2. The descent into Schizophrenia by Louis Wain:

3. Anti-social and sadistic personality stress disorder, painting made by Adolf Hitler:

Once, I read a comment about this piece of art, I don’t remember from who or where, that stated that, even though Hitler’s art itself is quite proficient, the clear lack of signs of life in the work represents a disdain for human life that should have been noticed before any of the atrocities he committed, happened.

There are so many more examples, I could spend hours alone talking about examples in artworks, as well as writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Ernest Hemmingway and Sylvia Plath. Still I feel I lack the degree or knowledge to fully say, without a shred of ignorance, what this all means. 

Since ancient Greece, creativity and madness have gone together hand in hand with characters like Dyonisis. An essay called “The link between creativity and madness” which author’s name I couldn’t find, read as follows:

Dionysian was of pure genius in his creation and art, as noted by Jamison, but he was also known for his excess use of force and his aggressiveness toward his people to the point that he was thought to be insane; he became not only a symbol of creativity, but he also symbolized insanity. Moreover, the link between madness and talent has also been noted by the great Greek philosopher Plato as he believed that poets are driven by a touch of insanity”

I shall leave the link to the essay at the end. 

I once heard someone say that the best way to define madness was this: Imagine if for a moment you had all the knowledge in the world. You could see everything and know the meaning of every single detail of the universe. Then, all of a sudden, it’s zapped away from you, never to return. You had all that knowledge that now you aren’t able to grasp anymore, receiving only a trickle of what once was an ocean. You know how the seas are and look, but all that you are able to show now is a simple trickle of water. 

That is insanity. A door that opens up to the eyes of those with a mind unable to understand everything that their seeing yet try to understand it anyways. An abyss of unknowable depths, from which eyes of unknown creatures stare back at you. A  cosmos of far and distant stars that you will never be able to reach, for even if they are all so clear, they are all so far away. 

And we, the artist, are the ones who get a glimpse at the price of our sanity. 

Our eyes are yet to open, yet, what will happen when they finally do? Are you prepared to face the twilight of madness? Or will you close them back down and pretend they never did? 

Bewarn though. Once you open that door, even for a fraction of a second, it can never again truly be closed. I know this personally, for even though most days I am well, I still feel it at the back of my skull, lurking, ready to show me something good, something bad, something ugly, something beautiful, something unknowable, till the seas swallow us all. 

Thank you for reading. 

References:

• https://www.123helpme.com/essay/The-Correlation-between-Creativity-and-Madness-312785#:~:text=There%20lies%20a%20link%20between,individuals%2C%20and%20mentally%20ill%20patients.
  
• https://www.artfido.com/art-through-the-eyes-and-minds-of-people-with-schizophrenia/
  
• https://www.sartle.com/blog/post/mental-health-art-history-5-artists-with-depression
  
• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/articles/painting-by-adolf-hitler-features-in-new-art-exhibition/