[hamster-bamster]

I saw several of his last paintings, including a portrait of his p-doc. They are for the most part full of life. Looking at them one really cannot say "This man was approaching death by suicide".

sometimes you can never see it coming....

i never really knew what happened with that guy.

was he actually bipolar?

or something else

or was it never known

[faerie_moon_x]

Hughes writes that from May 1889 to May 1890 he, "had fits of despair and hallucination during which he could not work, and in between them, long clear months in which he could and did, punctuated by extreme visionary ecstasy."[

Even if he didn't carry a diagnosis of bipolar (which I don't even think existed back then), that discription sure does sound familiar.

[Clinte89]

He wa so briliant and a master of hiding his emotions. You cant see it in his paintings probably because he was trying to hide it or wanted to be happy so he painted happy things. IDK personally Im not much in the way of understanding art accept being able to feel the pain of some of the artist. Happiness I dont understand.

[faerie_moon_x]

I personally that that all of his paintings reveal a sense of mental unrest. His very style of defining with brush strokes - bringing an image out of a nonsense of lines, swirls, explosive color... it's like looking through a cluttered thought process to find a pattern. Very much how my mind works. Work through the clutter until something starts to make sense.

[Odee]

Originally Posted by dark_heart_x

I personally that that all of his paintings reveal a sense of mental unrest. His very style of defining with brush strokes - bringing an image out of a nonsense of lines, swirls, explosive color... it's like looking through a cluttered thought process to find a pattern. Very much how my mind works. Work through the clutter until something starts to make sense.

This, exactly! Even his images of mundane scenes give me this sense of a kind of disturbing mental unrest. I love it, I love his work.

[wing]

I agree dark_heart.

I knew he was bipolar, but I didn't know he had a therapist.

[hamster-bamster]

The explanation near the paintings called him DOCTOR. I am not sure what exactly he did. There was little to be done back then - it was before psychopharmacology and before modern T.

[faerie_moon_x]

If I remember rightly (and it's been a long time since I studied Van Gohg) I think he lived in an asylum of some type for a while.

[hamster-bamster]

He did. In and out, I think.

[Travelinglady]

Some of his famous paintings were drawn when he was in the asylum--like starry night, based on what he saw out of his window there.

I saw a movie about him. He was having a hard time making ends meet and seemed to have a lot of angst and emotional unrest.

[creativelight]

Reading this makes me remember my artistic peek. Not that I'm not having exhibitions, just that now I don't act as I used to. Growing up, trying to act like an adult, trying to run away from the crazy stigma... Is like all that has to do with my art, screamed crazy.. I loved it.. And now.. I feel blah.. I mean I enjoy my family and all but a ahh I don't know. Who cares. Now I'm just crazy in a boring way lol

I think the meds cause that, Creativelight. They just drain the creative drive. Thank goodness the great artists like Michaelangelo, DaVinci, etc., didn't live in an age when psychotropic drugs were used. So much beauty would have been lost to the world.

The same thing is true today, as well. Forget the stigma; watch your drugs so that you aren't drained of your creative drive. Let those who know nothing about creativity, imagination, and skill worry about the stigma. They're the ones who are in real need of enlightenment.

I hope I don't get bleeped for this one. But I once heard someone say, "He's got somethin' wrong wif his haid". Now, how's that for stigma? I sometimes think it's that level that reveals more of itself than it does anything about the bipolar personality.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by genetic

I think the meds cause that, Creativelight. They just drain the creative drive. Thank goodness the great artists like Michaelangelo, DaVinci, etc., didn't live in an age when psychotropic drugs were used. So much beauty would have been lost to the world.

The same thing is true today, as well. Forget the stigma; watch your drugs so that you aren't drained of your creative drive. Let those who know nothing about creativity, imagination, and skill worry about the stigma. They're the ones who are in real need of enlightenment.

I hope I don't get bleeped for this one. But I once heard someone say, "He's got somethin' wrong wif his haid". Now, how's that for stigma? I sometimes think it's that level that reveals more of itself than it does anything about the bipolar personality.

I do not believe that CL takes meds. And if someone does to the point of losing one's creativity, they need to be adjusted, as this is not an acceptable side effect. The point of correctly selected meds is to enable the person to function and live well, which includes being creative, productive, having a good sex life, etc. Etc. Until this is achieved, p-docs should not rest on their laurels. Unfortunately, it cannot yet be achieved for everyone, and for those who are luckier than others it still takes a long time, but the goal is definitely to achieve stability without squashing creativity, energy, and the sex drive (those three things are usually intertwined in bp people, but of course not always.)