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26SidedCube

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Guest imported_El Mamerro

This is all ill and all, but besides this one, I don't really see anything in these paintings that differs all that much from other paintings done by non-mental artists (or at least not diagnosed as such), and/or provides insight on some unique visualization that only a patient with the aforementioned disorders would have. Word-on the run-on.

 

And well, obviously the cat images show mental deterioration, but without the pre-insanity imagery reference, they'd be really nothing all that special.

 

Also, I think this is by far the sickest work on this thread. But I still think that it's not essential to be insane to create an image like this.

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Guest BROWNer

^i agree.

and yes, that bird/figure thing is hot.

 

also the second gacy picture is fucking creepy, moreso

that he was a psycho, and becuz clowns are fucking bizarro.

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Originally posted by El Mamerro

This is all ill and all, but besides this one, I don't really see anything in these paintings that differs all that much from other paintings done by non-mental artists (or at least not diagnosed as such), and/or provides insight on some unique visualization that only a patient with the aforementioned disorders would have. Word-on the run-on.

 

And well, obviously the cat images show mental deterioration, but without the pre-insanity imagery reference, they'd be really nothing all that special.

 

Also, I think this is by far the sickest work on this thread. But I still think that it's not essential to be insane to create an image like this.

 

Originally posted by 26SidedCube

I don't know why this has always intrigued me...

I know they're just crazy people with a knack

for craft.. there's no hidden secrets to the brain

or any of that mumbojumbo, but it's cool to peek

into the archetypes from time to time.

 

If anyone knows of any others.. post 'em, I'd appreciate it.

 

Some seem too contrived to be 'authentic',

I'll give you that. Bosh could obviously funtion

pretty well to compose something that complex,

same with the Derrick Bayes... I just thought

they were interesting. Some of the people

were obviously on some more 'autopilot'

type shit and the others were just trying to

illustrate what they felt in a more palletable

means.... do you have to come and shit on

my sunshine? Sheesh. :D

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Guest imported_El Mamerro

Haha, sorry bout that. I'm not saying they're not authentic... I guess I was just expecting something more immediately indicative (or at least suggestive of) of the disorders mentioned, so I was a bit let down by seeing art that only becomes remarkable and significant after you evaluate the mental conditions of the artist. Which is dope in itself, don't get me wrong, just not what I was expecting. In some cases, I feel exactly the opposite... I see some art whose significance I expect to be increased when placed under the context of an insane creator, but no change is evident.

 

Those two I mentioned are the only ones I can see completely by themselves, without knowing anything about the artist, and I'd go "Whoa, there's some weird shit going on in here". But like I said, there's still a bunch of ill stuff in the thread. Please continue posting stuff...

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Dr. Jack Kevorkian

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kevorkian/aboutk/art/verystilllife.gif'>

Very Still Life[/b]

 

very georgia o'keefe-ish.

I didn't even know he made paintings.

 

Aside from that, what exactly makes someone schizo? I usually think of people who just hear voices, but i know its way more complex.

 

Also, do you guys think there is such a thing as a so-called mentally sound artist?

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Probably been seen before on here but...

 

These 9 drawings were done by an artist under the influence of LSD -- part of a test conducted by the US government during it's dalliance with psychotomimetic drugs in the late 1950's. The artist was given a dose of LSD 25 and free access to an activity box full of crayons and pencils. His subject is the medico that jabbed him.

 

First drawing is done 20 minutes after the first dose (50ug)

 

An attending doctor observes - Patient chooses to start drawing with charcoal.

 

The subject of the experiment reports - 'Condition normal... no effect from the drug yet'.

 

http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/pictures/ATdrawing1.jpg'>

 

85 minutes after first dose and 20 minutes after a second dose has been administered (50ug + 50ug)

 

The patient seems euphoric.

 

'I can see you clearly, so clearly. This... you... it's all ... I'm having a little trouble controlling this pencil. It seems to want to keep going.'

 

http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/pictures/ATdrawing2.jpg'>

 

2 hours 30 minutes after first dose.

 

Patient appears very focus on the business of drawing.

 

'Outlines seem normal, but very vivid - everything is changing colour. My hand must follow the bold sweep of the lines. I feel as if my consciousness is situated in the part of my body that's now active - my hand, my elbow... my tongue'.

 

http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/pictures/ATdrawing3.jpg'>

 

2 hours 32 minutes after first dose.

 

Patient seems gripped by his pad of paper.

 

'I'm trying another drawing. The outlines of the model are normal, but now those of my drawing are not. The outline of my hand is going weird too. It's not a very good drawing is it? I give up - I'll try again...'

 

http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/pictures/ATdrawing4.jpg'>

 

2 hours 35 minutes after first dose.

 

Patient follows quickly with another drawing.

 

'I'll do a drawing in one flourish... without stopping... one line, no break!'

 

Upon completing the drawing the patient starts laughing, then becomes startled by something on the floor.

 

4 hours 25 minutes after first dose.

 

Patient retreated to the bunk, spending approximately 2 hours lying, waving his hands in the air. His return to the activity box is sudden and deliberate, changing media to pen and water colour.

 

'This will be the best drawing, Like the first one, only better. If I'm not careful I'll lose control of my movements, but I won't, because I know. I know' - (this saying is then repeated many times).

 

Patient makes the last half-a-dozen strokes of the drawing while running back and forth across the room.

 

 

http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/pictures/ATdrawing7.jpg'>

 

5 hours 45 minutes after first dose.

 

Patient continues to move about the room, intersecting the space in complex variations. It's an hour and a half before he settles down to draw again - he appears over the effects of the drug.

 

'I can feel my knees again, I think it's starting to wear off. This is a pretty good drawing - this pencil is mighty hard to hold' - (he is holding a crayon).

 

http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/pictures/ATdrawing8.jpg'>

 

8 hours after first dose.

 

Patient sits on bunk bed. He reports the intoxication has worn off except for the occational distorting of our faces. We ask for a final drawing which he performs with little enthusiasm.

 

'I have nothing to say about this last drawing, it is bad and uninteresting, I want to go home now.'

 

http://www.cowboybooks.com.au/pictures/ATdrawing9.jpg'>

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PSYCHOSIS

Psychotic disorders include severe mental disorders which are characterized by extreme impairment of a person's ability to think clearly, respond emotionally, communicate effectively, understand reality, and behave appropriately. Psychotic symptoms can be seen in teenagers with a number of serious mental illnesses, such as depression, bi-polar disorder (manic-depression), schizophrenia, and with some forms of drug and alcohol abuse. Psychotic symptoms interfere with a person’s daily functioning and can be quite debilitating. Psychotic symptoms include delusions and hallucinations.

 

Delusion: A false, fixed, odd, or unusual belief firmly held by the patient. The belief is not ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture. There are delusions of paranoia (others are plotting against them), grandiose delusions (exaggerated ideas of one's importance or identity), and somatic delusions (a healthy person believing that he/she has a terminal illness).

 

Hallucination: A sensory perception (seeing, hearing, feeling, and smelling) in the absence of an outside stimulus. For example, with auditory hallucinations, the person hears voices when there is no one talking.

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Nekro, thanks for posting that. It was pretty interesting. Same could be said with the rest of the first page.

 

Hallucination: A sensory perception (seeing, hearing, feeling, and smelling) in the absence of an outside stimulus. For example, with auditory hallucinations, the person hears voices when there is no one talking.

I have a question... Would a child who laughs ocassionally (for no reason at all, or so it seems) be considered delusional? I'm talking about a 7-8 year old kid... I'm not sure if that's (too) old for a person that age to have... a pretend friend. Or whatever. I found a letter from the school talking about my little brother. It was a report (from god knows who) about my little brother and his behavior. Not only his behavior but how he is doing academically. Sometimes (not all the time, it's pretty rare) I hear him laughing by himself while he's in the living room. But this hasn't hapened in a while. And his speech (pronounciations and such) is off. The repor said he was talking to himself and like laughing to himself. Something like that...

 

But... My mom said the same thing happened with her when she was young. She said she didn't know how to talk properly until she got a little older. But I bet she was like 4 or something... And the same with my Chemistry teacher. She said when she was younger, people thought that she was "crazy". That was the term she used. When she was young she didn't talk much, or at all. And people thought that she was crazy.

 

 

Sorry for babbling... I'm just worried about my lil' bro.

-brotherlylove

 

 

ps. My mom (an Asian woman) told me many stories. The most that caught my attention was of guardians. [Asian people love to talk about ghost stories and ancient cambodian myths and all that]. Anyways, on with the guardians. She said they're guardians that look out for families and I guess their household. And that the guardians love to play with kids. So I'm guessing my brother is playing with someone...

 

 

ehhh.... I'll add more later. (More detailed stories perhaps. Might as well start a ghost story thread. w00t!) Ignore the mispellings and that... grammar stuff...

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A little off-topic.

 

Genius or Insanity?:

 

Signs of Schizophrenia in Nijinsky’s Choreography 1912-1913

 

Introduction

 

Vaslav Nijinsky, famed star of Diagilev’s Ballet Russes, is credited with the creation of three of the most unusual ballets in the history of dance. L’Aprés-Midi d’un Faune, Jeux, and Le Sacre du Printemps all involve a highly unique choreography, and were the subjects of various scandals during their perfomances in 1912 and 1913. Today, he is heralded as a genius. But this famous and celebrated dancer and choreographer was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1919, at the age of 30. His diary, kept in early 1919, clearly exhibits the signs of thought disorder associated with schizophrenia. But given the nature of the disease and its gradual onset, it is reasonable to assume that he was schizophrenic before 1919. Is it, however, reasonable to assume that he was suffering from schizophrenia as early as 1912 or 1913? Did the disordered thought processes associated with the disease interfere with his ballets, or were they in any way responsible for the unusual nature of his choreography? If this is the case, should Nijinsky’s choreography be heralded as the work of a genius, or studied as that of a madman? In order to determine whether or not Vaslav Nijinsky was, in fact, insane during the creations of L’Aprés-Midi d’un Faune, Jeux, and Le Sacre du Printemps, we must first examine the effects of the disease itself, as well as its repercussions in the creative work of the insane.

 

Schizophrenia: signs and symptoms

 

In 1896, the psychiatrist Kraepelin announced an important discovery: most of the patients in asylums suffered from the same disorder, characterized by a number of common symptoms. Kraepelin named this disorder dementia praecox, or a demetia of adolescence, because of its onset during adolescence. The term schizophrenia later replaced this misnomer: coined by the psychiatrist Dr. Bleuler in 1911, it is derived from the Greek scixw + frhn: i.e. split or cleft mind. However,

 

The literal translation "split personality" has caused its own problems, because some people have interpreted the split as a split into two parts. In fact, the "split" in schizophrenia was never intended to mean a split in two, but a split into broken pieces. "Shattered" would be a better translation. In schizophrenia the sense of self is disrupted, and disconnected from the senses. What results is usually a withdrawn person who has bizarre belief systems (but not a fixed delusion, rather one that itself is fractured and changes unpredictably).

 

The major signs of schizophrenia have been categorized by McKenna as abnormal ideas and perceptions, formal thought disorder, motor, volitional and behavioural disorder, and emotional disorders.

 

Foremost among abnormality of perception and ideas is the delusion, and foremost among delusions is that of paranoia. To a schizophrenic, the world around him is filled with symbol and meaning, and most of this meaning revolves around the patient himself. Simple actions, such as a car passing him on the street, can be interpreted as part of a grand, paranoid scheme in which the entire world is persecuting him. Common as well is the delusion of grandeur, often tainted with the religious, in which the patient believes himself to be driven by a divine motive, or may even be God himself. These delusions are usually repetitive and intrusive, and are usually reinforced by auditory hallucinations. However, although he sees symbols and symbolism everywhere, the schizophrenic is consistently unable to describe or explain these symbols to the sane man with any regularity or coherence.

 

One of the most peculiar and disconcerting symptoms of schizophrenia, however, is that of formal thought disorder. Schizophrenic speech reflects this thought disorder, which "refers to disturbances in the form of thinking – that is, its structure, organization, and coherence – which manifest themselves as a loss of intelligibility of speech". Kraeplin identified this as stemming from a derailment of thought, while Bleuler states that it was loosening of association which was at fault. In any case, schizophrenic speech exhibits several bizarre characteristics, including the invention of new words, alogia, lack of associations, and the ‘word salad’ effect of general incoherence.

 

The schizophrenic also exhibits bizarre and disorderly movement patterns, ranging from a repetition of uniform but purposeless motions to complete catatonia. But simpler disorders of movement are evident; the patient may adopt new mannerisms associated with everyday activities, sit in extreme, statuesque postures, walk in twisting, extravagant, or stooped movements, or simply stop an action right in mid-sequence. At some catatonic moments, they seem impossible of motion, while at other times they cannot sit still, but rub their hands, rock backwards and forwards, or fidget incessantly. The schizophrenic’s movements appear abnormal and even grotesque precisely because of their repetitiveness, purposelessness, and general twisted or stilted quality. Generally, however, schizophrenics appear to conceive of motion in flat, static terms.

 

A final crucial symptom of schizophrenia is evidenced by inappropriate emotions. Particularly important is the symptom of flat affect:

 

"… the subtleties of an individual’s emotional state are constantly being signaled to others, largely unconsciously, by facial expression… It is this that becomes diminished, lost, or altered in schizophrenia. When mild, the effect is noticeable, if intangible: there is… ‘something queer, cold, rigid, and petrified…’ When more marked, a definite lack of responsiveness to emotive topics can be pinpointed: the patient may discuss unpleasant and even horrific experiences casually and matter-of-factly."

 

Because of this flattening of affect, patients appear unresponsive or simply withdrawn, and usually retreat from social situations; in less pronounced cases, patients appear aloof or disinterested. In general, however, schizophrenics have difficulties with all facets of interpersonal relationships, whether in simple conversation or in a long term commitment to a marriage partner, because of a loss of ability to communicate effectively in speech and in affect – problems only compounded by the factor of delusion.

 

Evidence for Nijinsky’s Schizophrenia pre-1919

 

Nijinsky was diagnosed as a schizophrenic in 1919. This should not prove too surprising, considering that his brother was also a schizophrenic, which would allow him a 10% chance of developing the disease. But one does not become schizophrenic overnight: the onset of the disease is slow, and thus his descent into his illness must have begun much earlier. Most schizophrenics are only officially diagnosed after the behaviour has become significantly outrageous or dangerous: many have lived with the milder, accumulating symptoms beforehand. In Nijinsky’s case, his behaviour in several incidents became erratic enough to convince Romola that he was insane as early as 1917 or 1918. It is also known that the symptoms of schizophrenia which involve the "excess or distortion of normal functions" may "fluctuate over time". With these facts in mind, it is interesting to wonder when exactly the first signs of schizophrenia in Nijinsky were in evidence.

 

It is entirely possible that Nijinsky may have begun his descent into schizophrenia far earlier than imagined. First of all, Schizophrenia usually comes on in the teenage years or early twenties. Although Dr. Castillo explains the latency of Nijinksy’s illness as due to his dependant relationship on Diagilev, it may simply be that Nijinsky’s situation disguised the symptoms of his oncoming illness. He was sheltered significantly by Diagilev, and did not have to face much of reality within the fantasy world of the theatre. He was also a quiet man and did not talk much; thus the revealing of his possible thought disorders proved unlikely.

 

There is some significant evidence in Nijinsky’s behaviour that he may have been slightly schizophrenic as early as 1913. This evidence is almost entirely summarized by Hilda Munnings’ observations of the dancer when she joined the company in 1913:

 

"In appearance Nijinksy was himself like a faun – a wild creature who had been trapped by society and was always ill at ease. When addressed, he turned his head furtively, looking as if he might suddenly butt you in the stomach. He moved on the balls of his feet, and his nervous energy found an outlet in fidgeting: when he sat down he twisted his fingers or played with his shoes. He hardly spoke to anyone, and seemed to exist on a different plane. Before dancing he was even more withdrawn, like a bewitched soul. … Even though he was always surrounded by people, [he] seemed always to be alone; he was incapable of mixing in any way.

 

This quotation alone provides strong evidence for a suspicion of schizophrenia: reticence, inability to communicate with others, illness at ease, a persecution anxiety, and excessive fidgeting. Munning’s observation that "he seemed to exist on a different plane" may be more correct than she realized at the time.

 

If Nijinsky’s schizophrenic symptoms had been present, if only mildly, in 1913, could this have been perceived in his work? More specifically, can we detect elements of schizophrenia in Nijinsky’s choreography of his three ballets in 1912-13? In order to do so, we must examine the ways in which schizophrenic symptoms are expressed creatively.

 

Schizophrenia and Creativity

 

With such a dissociation of elements, clearly disorganized thought patterns, and lack of communicative tools or needs, many schizophrenics find it impossible to be creative. They lack the congruity and linear qualities of thought which tie the creative act together, as well as the mental capacity to conceive of a task and to carry it through to completion. However, some schizophrenics do manage to create; in fact, modern studies have given convincing evidence that "among artists disorders of the schizophrenic spectrum and psychopaties were most common… a surprising but clear association between the creative gift and the risk of schizophrenia…" In his study of the art of the insane, MacGregor identifies several schizophrenic artists, some of which had never painted before, but suddenly asked for paints and paper, while others were acclaimed artists before they became insane. As for the former, ‘Richard Nisbett, Mariner’ constantly drew maps "covered with writing, rich in schizophrenic word play, with the various land masses chaotically dispersed, but carefully labeled and painted". The latter cases may have had more tools with which to express themselves: Paul-Max Simon records that a patient who had been trained as a draftsman drew in a style "characterized by an absolute correctness of execution, offering to the eye a markedly harmonious effect", but one who had had no previous training "could not manage to trace the dreams which presented themselves to his imagination". As artists descend into insanity, their subject matter may become more odd and fantastic, oftentimes relating to the patient’s delusional systems, and the patient may come to believe that he is a divine instrument.

 

What characteristics distinguish the art of the insane? The Italian psychiatrist Lambroso was probably the first to offer categories identifying psychotic art; a few of his thirteen features of the art of the insane include originality in form and material, overall uselessness, repetition and uniformity of images, minuteness of detail, general absurdity and eccentricity, atavism or primitivism, obscenity and sexuality, and extreme symbolism. Many of these categories remain undisputed today. It is clear that much schizophrenic art incorporates atavistic or childlike qualities, and the overwhelming use of symbols and allegories, sometimes decipherable only to the patient himself, cannot be ignored. Similarly obvious is the often blatant sexual imagery that is often associated with psychotic art. Paul-Max Simon also noted a direct relationship between the formal problems of speech later associated with schizophrenia, and the art of the insane: "In the same way that among these patients disorders of speech are at times extremely evident, the combinations of lines in their drawings can often be extremely complicated, or the colors which they use to illuminate their pictures can be absolutely untrue to nature." Patients may place themselves at the centre of their creation, congruent with their persecution fantasies, and much in the way of representation becomes static, iconographic, and frozen. They will also commonly cover every square inch of their paper with drawings, writings, or scribbles, and will often fill in an amount of detail that make their pictures surreal and absurdist. Symmetry and perspective are not usually in evidence; as many are so focussed on filling every space on the page, they do not care for these types of congruency. It is also important to note the fear of three-dimensionality which schizophrenic patients exhibit in art-therapy.

 

The Italian Silvano Arieti summarized schizophrenic creativity in the 1960’s in an interesting hypothesis. According to Preti, Arieti believes that "though processes typical of schizophrenic patients can favour the development of unusual mental associations which can, in turn, be inspiring to the creatively gifted individual, above all in the artistic field. Arieti supports his hypothesis in many ways, indicating the extraordinary talent of schizophrenic patients in coining new words, and giving many examples of the artistic production of patients confined in Asylums in the first half of this century. The works of these artists are often very odd and disquieting, but although unusual they do not posses the requisite of being ‘socially enjoyable’, which is essential if a product is to be judged as creative." Thus, the formal qualities of schizophrenic art, as well as its reception by the ‘normal’ viewer, can often be directly associated with the many and bizarre symptoms of the disease.

 

Evidence for Nijinsky’s Schizophrenic Tendencies in 1912-1913

 

Nijinksy’s three works, Prélude d’Après Midi d’un Faune, Jeux, and Sacre du Printemps, were all choreographed in the period of 1912-1913. Historically, he has been celebrated for his creation of a new art form in place of classical ballet; his choreography is distinctly unusual, even bizarre, and breaks easily through the previously conceived limits of the world of dance. If, however, Nijinsky was already suffering from mild schizophrenia in 1913, then we should be able to detect elements of schizophrenic art in this unique choreography. Indeed, in the light of the above summaries of the art of the schizophrenic, an analysis of Nijinsky’s creations indicates that the possibility of schizophrenic influences in these three ballets is unusually high.

 

Motion

 

Most striking of all in Nijinsky’s ballets is the new visual language, which combined new shapes, asymmetrical poses, and awkward, pigeon-toed steps in an effort to be totally centered on raw emotion in dance and music. Stiff and angular, his dancers were often compared to paintings on an ancient Greek urn. Movement seemed rather to be a jerky connection of uncomfortable postures, described as "epileptic fits" by one observer, and no easy symbols (such as pantomime or conventionalized steps) were provided for the audience to grasp. Arms and feet are twisted, contorted, placed into abstract positions, and a critic complained about Nijinsky’s "turning those exquisite ballerinas … into stiff and awkward puppets" In Jeux, the dancers were said to "move with the angularity of clockwork figures. Everything is at an angle. The only thing with a curve in it is the lost ball." Above all, however, was the lack of flow; instead of one movement proceeding naturally to the next, Nijinsky’s choreography demands its dancers to make instant and dramatic changes in posture and direction, resulting in halting, disconnected tableaux. In all these respects, Nijinsky’s choreography can be seen to be shattered, unpredictable, and lacking flow or unity: in essence, a "word salad" of strange figures and postures, comparable to the fragmented art common of schizophrenics.

 

Also unusual in terms of choreography are the elements of the formal motion itself. The dancers in Prélude, especially, are seen in two dimensions: hips square to the audience, head in profile, toes twisted to the side, the women dance in a line, flattened against the stage. Asymmetry is also fundamental to the overall design of Sacre, as are circular motions, movements, and spacings. The overall quality of the dances is surprisingly abstract: as one writer described Jeux as "[not] to be about sport and triangular love-making, [but] in reality … abstract, concerned neither with sporting movements nor human feelings, an essay in formal design." These elements of two dimensionality in three dimensions, asymmetry, and abstraction are all qualities shared in schizophrenic art.

 

Atavism

 

The influence of the primitive on Nijinsky is extremely clear in Sacre du Printemps: the entire ballet is set in pagan Russia, and surrounds the sacrifice of a virgin to the sun god. Even in Faune, the movement is said to capture the style of a Grecian urn. Nijinsky rejects the forms, vocabulary, and movements of classical ballet, moving back in time through dance in an attempt to portray real, raw emotion. In an American interview, Nijinsky was said to have shunned the conventionally beautiful desired in classical ballets, confessing: "my own inclinations are ‘primitive’". It is true that, today, we do not consider this regression from the classical language into a primitive one as necessarily a sign of psychosis:

 

"[in the early 20th century] Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Derain, and many others were convinced of the need to reject the traditional notion of beauty. They were drawn to primitive art precisely because it came from a different conception of the beautiful and of the purpose of art. Within aesthetics the possibility that other, radically different, ideas about what is beautiful might exist was now finding acceptance … In this revolutionary atmosphere, the art of untrained amateurs, children, savages, and the insane suddenly emerged as profoundly beautiful expressions of the human image-making impulse…"

 

Although Nijinsky worked in this period, it is nonetheless important to note that atavism is considered a sign of schizophrenic art.

 

Symbolism

 

It is interesting that Nijinsky on the whole rejects the symbols and cues usually preferred in classical ballet. In his creation of a new dance vocabulary, it is significant that, although the dancers knew that something new was required of them, they could not understand his demands. This may have led to the legendary tension at Nijinsky’s rehearsals. It is also important that "the significance of the choreography of Jeux, which was highly free and original, went unnoticed at its first performance. Both Karsavina and Ludmilla Schollar … had also found it difficult to grasp the significance of what Vaslav wa attempting. The highly intelligent Karsavina later confessed that she was confused by the fact that Nijinksy could not explain the significance of the movements he asked her to make, but simply wanted her to parrot them." Although Nijinksy may have considered his own choreography highly symbolic, as may be expressed in his repetitive use of geometric and circular floor patterns, this was not a set of symbols accessible to his audience or to his dancers.

 

Affect

 

It may be a bit uncanny for most viewers of Faune or the reconstructed Sacre that the dancers’ faces are flat and expressionless. This is because, according to Nijinksy’s new choreography, only the body speaks. An interesting story is told of Bewick’s rehearsal for the part of the sixth Nymph in Prélude d’Après-Midi d’un Faune:

 

"When towards the end, [bewick] had to come on alone to confront the Faun, then walk off with hands raised, she put on a frightened expression. Nijinksy reprimanded her, asking, ‘Why do you make that face?’ She replied, ‘I thought I was meant to be frightened.’ He said, ‘Never mind what you thought. Do no more than I tell you. It is all in the choreography.’"

 

In spite of the historians’ claims that Nijinsky did not allowed the face to express emotion in order to let the body speak, this flatness of affect is clearly related to one of the primary signals of schizophrenia.

 

Detail

 

Another important and unique aspect of Nijinsky’s choreography is his incredible attention to detail. Sacre was indeed a challenging work musically, but a full 120 rehearsals were required before Nijinsky was satisfied with the dancers. "Nijinksy would allow no latitude in the interpretation of his choreography; every movement had to be exact, precisely as he set it." Nijinsky himself declared "Choreography should be precise", and set about giving individual dancers exacting instructions, often demonstrating the moves himself and requiring their exact reproduction. This was not common practice at the time, and reportedly frustrated the dancers to no end. However, this tendency may have been not a product of Nijinsky’s personal perfectionism, but rather related to the same minuteness and exactness of detail found in the schizophrenic’s creative products.

 

Eroticism

 

By all accounts, sexuality and eroticism plays a definite role in Nijinsky’s ballets. The sexual tension in Prélude, between the faun and the nymph, and the "highly charged sexuality" in Jeux’s love triangle, were noted by the audience and critics of the Nijinsky’s time. The action in Sacre is called a "series of ogasmic dances"; the men in Sacre are described as in "sexual panic" before executing a "stylized rape"; and the last twitch of the virgin on the ground has been called "the orgasm of the god". A critic for Le Figaro wasted no words in describing the true essence of Après-Midi thus:

 

"We are shown a lecherous faun, whose movements are filthy and bestial in their eroticism, and whose gestures are as crude as they are indecent… Decent people will never accept such animal realism."

 

Finally, there is the controversial ending of the Prélude, in which the faun lowers himself slowly onto the nymph’s veil and "consummates his union with it, taut on the ground, by a convulsive jerk. We are to imagine that this is his first sexual experience." By all accounts, the exact nature of Nijinsky’s final movement as the Faun are uncertain. It is clear that the movement is a "stylized orgasm", but Nijinsky may, in the first performance, have slid his hands under his body in this last moment, giving the impression of masturbation. In any case, the sexual associations were made brutally and indecently clear, as they usually are in schizophrenic art. Persecution

 

The virgin in Sacre du Printemps is chosen because she alone stumbles and falls in a group of women performing identical steps. The women then crowd around her, circling her and threatening her with violent motions. Essentially, the entire second act is centred around this virgin, at centre stage in the centre of the inscribed circles. She then is forced to dance to her death, forced to jump and leap repetitively until she is so exhausted that she collapses.

 

I do not consider it too farfetched to relate the story of this virgin sacrifice to Nijinsky himself. Remember that Nijinsky was the dancer famed for his fabulous leaps, which awed and amazed the public. His last performance, in 1919 in which he attempted to "dance the war", bears a striking resemblance to that last dance of the virgin in Sacre:

 

"The public sat breathlessly horrified and so strangely fascinated. They seemed to be petrified… And he was dancing, dancing on. Whirling through space, taking his audience away with him to war, to destruction, facing suffering and horror, struggling … to escape the inevitable end. It was the dance for life against death."

 

"Then, Nijinksy danced a number in the aerial style expected of him [i.e. his famous leaps and jumps], and at the end of it placed his hands on his heart and said, ‘The little horse is tired.’"

 

Essentially, Nijinsky danced himself to exhaustion in the same way that the virgin does in the ballet, surrounded and persecuted by a heartless audience. It is impossible to know whether or not Nijinsky did identify with the virgin sacrifice, consciously or unconsciously. In any case, his paranoia is in full swing by 1919, and I would suggest that early traces of this core schizophrenic symptom can be seen in the Sacre du Printemps.

 

Audience Response

 

A final, important clue as to the sanity of the creator is that of audience response. We have seen Arieti insist that ‘social enjoyability’ is a crucial distinguishing factor in insane art, and many other psychiatrists have insisted that schizophrenic art is not useful. According to Dr. Vertesi, a critical sign of schizophrenia is the acute discomfort experienced by the interviewer; whereas manic depressives may make one feel uplifted and excited, there is something in the underlying thought process of a schizophrenic that makes the sane person highly uncomfortable. The audience reactions during the opening performances of Après-Midi d’un Faune and Sacre du Printemps clearly indicate that the audience was put considerably ill at ease. Many insisted that Nijinksy was making fun of them, or laughing at their expense, and others simply hooted for "un docteur, deux dentistes!" Many young artists, however banded together and praised his works. And in Nijinsky’s case, it can be argued that the end result was so ingeniously new that it was not understandable to the majority of his audience. However, the movements could also be seen as so far removed from understandability as to be psychotic.

 

Creativity, Genius, and Insanity

 

Was Nijinsky’s insanity responsible for the creation of Sacre and Prélude? Or was it simply the sign of complete genius? Unfortunately, it is difficult to tell. The links between insanity and genius have been examined several times over the centuries, beginning with Aristotle. Lambroso believed sincerely that all men of genius were necessarily men of insanity, and attempted to prove it not only through a comparison of art but also linking physical characteristics such as left-handedness or dwarfish stature. It has been argued as well that geniuses may hold a substantial number of personality traits in common with schizophrenics, and are more likely to be related to someone with a mental disorder, if they are not so afflicted themselves. And Ludwig has also presented that mental disturbances average at about 72% among artistic professions.

 

It seems that there may be a link between schizophrenia or schizophrenic tendencies and those associated with creative geniuses. This should not be so surprising in light of Mednick’s definition of creativity: that "the creative thinking process.. [is] the forming of associative elements into new combinations which either meet specified requirements or are in some way useful". Therefore, it should hardly be surprising that schizophrenia can play such a large role in what is deemed ‘creative’. The disturbed thought processes characteristic of a mild schizophrenic may combine previously unassociated concepts in a way which is ‘useful’ enough to be considered ‘creative’. In any case, the creation of something as entirely new as Nijinsky’s dance may, at this stage, be considered equally an indication of genius and of insanity.

 

Conclusion

 

Given a study of the symptoms of schizophrenia, as well as the characteristics of creativity in schizophrenics, it is entirely likely that Nijinksy may have begun his descent into insanity as early as 1912. Certainly, elements can be seen in his work that relate surprisingly well to characteristics identified with psychotic art. It may in fact be that Nijinsky’s Prélude D’Après- Midi d’un Faune, Jeux, and Le Sacre du Printemps were the products of a deranged mind.

 

Eighty years later, however, we have a perspective on Nijinsky’s work that his contemporaries lacked. We now know that, insane or not, Nijinksy’s new movement vocabulary had a significant impact on the dance world:

 

"By breaking up movement, by returning to the simplicity of gesture, Nijinksy has restored expressiveness to dancing. All the angularities and awkwardness of this choreography keep the feeling in… Nijinsky makes the body itself speak. It only moves as a whole, as one block, and its speech is expressed in sudden bounds with open arms and legs, or in sideways runs with bent knees and with the head lying on one shoulder … he is no longer obliged to run one gesture into another or to consider their relationship with those which follow…"

 

It was Nijinsky’s ability to create an entirely new concept of dance, whether due to his schizophrenia or his genius, which has inspired generations of dancers since. As the inheritors of a dance world dramatically influenced by dance innovators such as the Denishawn company and Martha Graham, we must recognize Nijinsky’s genius and/or insanity as responsible for the changed conceptions, possibilities, and perceptions of dance in the twentieth century.

 

 

 

Appendix A: Examples of Schizophrenic Formal Disorder

 

Derailment of Speech:

 

Interviewer: (Tells the donkey and the salt story and asks patient to tell it in his own words.)

 

Patient: A donkey was carrying salt and he went through a river, and he decided to go for a swim. And his salt started dissolving off him into the water, and it did, it left him hanging there, so he crawled out on the other side and became a mastodon… It gets unfrozen, it’s up in the Arctic right now; it’s a block of ice, the block of ice gets planted … You can see they’re like, they’re almost like a pattern with a flower; they start from the middle and it’s like a submerged ice cube that’s frozen into the soil afterwards.

 

(Rochester and Martin, 1979, in McKenna, 13)

 

Incoherence and Neologisms:

 

Interviewer: (Asks patient to interpret the proverb ‘don’t change horses in mid-stream’.)

 

Patient: That’s wish-bell double vision. Like walking across a person’s eye and reflecting personality. It works on you like dying and going into the spiritual world but landing in the vella world.

 

(Harrow and Quinlan, 1985, in McKenna, 13)

 

Grandiose Delusions, Repetition, and Derailment:

 

"To Man,

 

I cannot call you by name because you cannot be called by your name. I am not writing to you quickly because I don’t want you to think that I am nervous. I am not a nervous man. I am able to write calmly. I like writing. I do not like writing fine phrases. I never learned to write fine phrases. I want to write down thoughts. I need thought. I am not afraid of you. I know you hate me. I love you as a human being. I do not want to work with you. I want to tell you one thing… I am not dead. I am alive. Within me lives God. I live in God, God lives in me…I have not called you friend, because I know that you are my enemy. I am not your enemy. An enemy is not God. God is not an enemy. Enemies seek death. I seek life. I have love. You have spite. I am not a predatory beast. You area predatory beast. Predatory beasts do not like people. I like people. Doestoevsky liked people. I am not an idiot. I am a human being. I am an idiot. Doestoevsky is an idiot. You thought I was stupid. I thought you were stupid. We thought we were stupid. I don’t want to decline. I don’t like declensions… I was God. I am God within yourself…

 

You are mine. I am God.

 

You have forgotten that God is.

 

I have forgotten that God is.

 

You are within me, and I am within you.

 

You are mine, and I am yours.

 

You are the one who wants death.

 

You are the one who loves death.

 

I love love love…

 

You are a vmuzhay I am a vmuzhay

 

We are vmuzhai, you are vmuzhai…

 

You are a woodpecker, I am not a woodpecker,

 

You knock and I knock

 

Your knock is your knock, but mine is a knock

 

Knock-knock, knock, in a knock there is a knock…

 

…You are a spiteful man, but I am a lullabyer. Rockabye, bye, bye, bye. Sleep in peace, rockabye, bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

 

(Letter to Diaghilev, 1919. The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, 254-261)

 

 

 

Sources

 

Buckle, Richard. Nijinsky. New York: Penguin Books, 1971.

 

Foster, Fiona. "Fear of three-dimensionality: clay and plasticine as experiemental bodies". In: Art, Psychotherapy and Psychosis. Eds. Killick, Katherine and joy Schaverein. London: Routeledge, 1997. 52-71.

 

Lombroso, Cesare. "Genius and Insanity". In: The Creativity Question. Eds. Rothenberg, Albert & Carl R. Hausman. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1976. 79-85.

 

Ludwig, Arnold M. "Mental Disturbance and Creative Achievement". In: The Harvard Mental Health Letter March 1996. <http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/p5h-cre1.html> (27 April, 1999).

 

MacGregor, John M. The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989.

 

Maclagan, David. "Has ‘psychotic art’ become extinct?". In: Art, Psychotherapy and Psychosis. Eds. Killick, Katherine and joy Schaverein. London: Routeledge, 1997. 131-143.

 

McKenna, P.J. Schizophrenia and Related Syndromes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

 

Mednick, Sarnoff A. "The Associative Basis of the Creative Process". In: The Creativity Question. Eds. Rothenberg, Albert & Carl R. Hausman. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1976. 227-237.

 

Nijinsky, Vaslav. The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky: unexpurgated Edition. Trans. Kyril Fitzlyon. Ed. Joan Acocella. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1995.

 

Parker, Derek. Nijinsky: God of the Dance. London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1988.

 

Preti, Antonio. The Gift of Saturn: Creativity and Psychopathology. <http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/serendipia/Se...ipia-Preti.html> (27 April, 1999)

 

Seth-Smith, Fiona. "Four Views of the Image". In: Art, Psychotherapy and Psychosis. Eds. Killick, Katherine and joy Schaverein. London: Routeledge, 1997. 84-105.

 

Vertesi, Les. <lvertesi@home.com> "Banana Split and other disorders" 22 April, 1999. Personal email.

 

Vertesi, Les. Telephone interview. 24 April, 1999.

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Someone's opinion, I think.

 

http://www.phylliskindgallery.com/self-tau...ght/artbrut/aw/

 

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Adolf Wolfli

1864-1930

Born in Bowil, Switzerland

 

Adolf Wolfli's childhood was one of degradation and indigence. The youngest of the seven children born to a stonecutter and a laundress, Wolfli, orphaned before his tenth birthday, was made a ward of the community and lived in a succession of wretched foster homes. Forbidden to court the girl he loved by her scornful father, Wolfli temporarily abandoned life as an itinerant farm laborer in 1883 to join the infantry. In 1890, he was sentenced to two years in prison for the attempted molestation of two young girls, and in 1895, after a third incident of alleged molestation of a three-and-a-half-year-old-girl, he was committed to the Waldau Psychiatric Clinic in Bern, where he remained until his death in 1930. Suffering from terrifying hallucinations, Wolfli was often placed in isolation during the first decade of his hospitalization. From 1910, working systematically on his writing and drawing, Wolfli desired the solitude and protection of a private cell, which he decorated with his own works.

 

After four years in the Waldau clinic, Wolfli began to draw. The earliest preserved works, dating from 1904, are restless, symmetrical pencil drawings on newsprint. Combining images, words, and musical notations, the early works forecast the principal motifs and pictorial devices of his later work. In 1908, the year Dr. Walter Morgenthaler arrived at Waldau, Wolfli embarked upon the epic autobiographical project that would consume the remaining twenty-two years of his life. The text of the fanciful autobiography, interspersed with poetry, musical composition, and three thousand illustrations, comprises more than twenty-five thousand pages. Hand bound by Wolfli and stacked in his cell, the forty-five volumes eventually reached a height of more than six feet. Intermingling reality and fiction, Wolfli's autobiography begins as an adventurous geographical world expedition, of which Doufi (Wolfli's childhood name) is the hero, and expands to a grandiose tale of cosmic war, catastrophe, and conquest with Doufi transformed into St. Adolf II. The fascinating illustrations of the narrative are labyrinthine creations and mandalalike compositions of densely combined text and idiosyncratic motifs.

 

A few days before his death, Wolfli lamented his inability to complete the final section of the autobiography, a grandiose finale of nearly three thousand songs, which he titled "Funeral March". In 1972, Wolfli's work was exhibited at Documenta 5 and since then has been shown throughout Europe and the United States. In 1975, forty-five years after his death, Wolfli's staggering artistic production — including the autobiography and its illustrations, as well as some eight hundred loose leaf drawings-was transferred from the Waldau Psychiatric Clinic to the Kunst Museum in Bern.

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Hauser was hospitalised at the age of seventeen because of psychiatric problems, having never learned to write or count. In 1947 he was transferred to 'he hospital at Gugging in his native Austria, where he was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. At first he was given farm work and later was encouraged to draw by the psychiatrist Dr Leo Navratil, founder of the famous Artists' House at Gugging. Physically separated from the main hospital buildings, the Artists' House provided Hauser and the other artist-patients with a space in which to live and work according to their own creative desires, and unhindered by therapeutic imperatives. The result has been the emergence of an astonishing number of important outsider artists with international reputations, including August Walla, Oswald Tschirtner and Johann Garber, although Hauser is the most celebrated. He typically drew with coloured pencils and much of his imagery is manifestly sexual in content. This image of a saint exemplifies the generally hieratic and simplified nature of his imagery, as well as the tendency to produce saturated areas of strong colour. According to Navratil, Hauser's drawings changed according to his mental state. In manic phases he would produce large, vibrant and more complex images, whilst his depressive state would bring darker images, tending towards the abstract-geometric.

 

http://www.outsiderart.co.uk/johann.htm

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This seems a little contrived. Oh well.

 

 

'In the case of British artist Nick Blinko (b.1961), who has in the past been hospitalised, the need to make pictures is stronger than the desire for the psychic 'stability' brought by therapeutic drugs which adversely affects his ability to work. His images are constructed of microscopically detailed elements, sometimes consisting of literally hundreds of interconnecting figures and faces, which he draws without the aid of magnifying lenses and which contain an iconography that places him in the company of the likes of Bosch, Bruegel and the late Goya. These pictures produced in periods when he was not taking medication bring no respite from the psychic torment and delusions from which he suffers. In order to make art, Blinko risks total psychological exposure'.

 

http://www.outsiderart.co.uk/blinko.htm

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n the last two decades of his life the Polish outsider Edmund Monsiel, an untreated schizophrenic, produced a body of exquisitely detailed drawings, often with messianic and religious inscriptions. Though he held down a job as a weighbridge operator after he became ill he avo!ded social contact and was obsessively religious. His artistic outpourings began with transcriptions of visual hallucinations of Christ and the Devil in 1943, before giving way to chaotic agglomerations of figures and faces that seem suggest the artist's struggle with forces that threaten to consume him entirely. Subsequently Monsiel developed a more rigidly defined and controlled image of a world minated by the human face. Characteristically, Monsiel's drawings reflected the deific world of his visions in which he was God's emissary, rather than the dingy reality the small room in which he lived, and thereby quieted the powerful forces of his fears. Control was achieved partly through the. annihilation of pictorial depth and its placement by his own marks. Despite their hieratical nature, Monsiel's pictures seem to throb with an innate life; his figures and disembodied physiognomies are elusive, ways suggesting nascent metamorphosis.

 

Monsiel is regarded as one of most important of the European outsider artists. His drawings, which were always produced on small scraps of paper, are extremely rare, only around 500 exist, the majority of which are housed in Polish museum collections. The Collection de l'Art Brut also have a fine selection of his 'icons of obsession'; a major retrospective of his work was held there in 1998.

 

http://www.outsiderart.co.uk/monsiel.htm

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  • 1 month later...

For something 'interesting' to look at.

 

Bumped for casek.

Wenzel's parents came from Indonesia to Holland where he was born in 1959. As a baby he began to suffer from severe eczema and he was constantly hospitalised throughout the first eleven years of his life. It was during this time that it also became apparent that he was autistic. It is still not known whether his condition is innate or was induced by terrible infantile trauma. What is certain is that the memory of these times has remained strong, revealed in the recurrent presence in pictures such as this one (top) of a small self-portrait figure with arms raised behind his head, hair standing on end, and face screwed into a silent scream. He first discovered the urge to draw at the age of eleven and quickly began spontaneously to draw on anything he could find. The same working method is common to all of his production, consisting of an over-layering technique based on a strong linear framework. Individual elements are initially drawn in full view, without concession to the obscuring effects of their position in relation to the viewer. This is significant because he also tends to compose around a pictorial space based on linear perspective. The result is therefore a characteristic transparency of forms. Colour is subsequently blocked in and a process of obliteration and retrieval takes place, at times in the cause of emphasising particular figures or objects, but at others seemingly for purely composition reasons. Wenzel produces work of great sophistication whose immediate effect is, paradoxically, one of assured simplicity achieved by way of the boldness of the surface forms. He draws deep from the world he inhabits and those human beings whose lives are important to him.

 

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  • 9 months later...
  • 1 year later...

IMG_37.jpg

IMG_48.jpg

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I have always been a fan of anything highly

sexual. I believe what started the whole

perverted experience was a long tyme ago when I

was very young we as a family would sit and

watch PG-13 and Rated R movies. There was this

system where before the actual sex scene would

come on, we would have to turn our head. Now

me, Mr. keeping my ears to the television set,

would hear moans of excitement and all that good

stuff. So the curious individual I was I would

search high and low seeking anything more

perverted than the R Rating. Months would go by

and I would some how stumble across an X-Rated

movie. There shortly after I would witness my first

nude magazine, thanks to my older friendz who

knew where all the hot spots were (sand dunes,

alley ways). So that my friendz, is how I got

hooked and the rest is humping, I mean history

hah.... hah....

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