The relationship between artist and mental illness Essay - 1

The relationship between artist and mental illness - Essay Example This paper will analyze two artistic works done by two different artists which address the topic of mental illness. It includes the description of the topic and how the mentioned artist has presented it. The two artists whose works are to be analyzed in this paper are Edvard Munch from the 19th century and Jean Dubuffet from the 20th century. These two artists came up with works which were induced by their nature of mental illness. The 19th century artist, Edward Munch was a Norwegian, who lived between the year 1863 and 1944 (Prideaux & Munch 10). The 20th century artist Jean Dubuffet, originally from France lived between the year 1901 and 1985(Malchiodi 32). Both artists exhibited mental illness and disturbance in their works. In most of his works, Edvard Munch focused on the concept of death and dying. Munch was somehow obsessed with death and everything related to it. Munch’s unhappy childhood contributed a lot to his personality and mental illness. He grew up witnessing the deaths of his family members. He experienced traumas during his birth, which consequentially made him relate everything in his life to sorrow and death. He engraved the effects of birth trauma in his artistic works. Death and suffering was the focal point for which Munch conceptualized on (Prideaux & Munch 254). Most of Munch’s works had horrific looks; the works included the dead mother, the scream, the vampire, ashes, death and the lady, man and wife, melancholy, the Madonna and Golgotha. Something interesting to notice is the fact that all his works were embedded with negativity and suffering which were related to death. Munch’s presentation of death made it exist in every activity and encounter he experienced. It is evident that all the paintings relate to his life also they are related to death. Munch embraced death, and this was embedded and portrayed in all of his paintings. The painting named the dead mother depicts a child standing next to a bed on which her dead