Article #28 Genius or Madness

Often, we have read that art can be a healing tool for people who are in medical environments. Friends report that an occasional trip to a museum can be relaxing and mentally balancing.  The calm flowing lines of a seascape can transport a soul into another world for hours on end, as soothing artwork.   What happens to the artist during the creation process?  Is art-making divine or does it evoke madness?

Immediately, our thoughts flow to well-known artists. The story of Vincent Van Gogh is controversial. Did creating art drive him to chaos? Some reports say that the process saved his sanity while others say the heavy metals in the paints and mediums affected him adversely.  We know that he loved vivid colors.  I have read the unsubstantiated story that he loved yellow so much that he occasionally ingested it. Did the metals enter his bloodstream because he, like many artists of his time, would lick the paintbrush to wet it?   What about other artists that teetered on the edge? How about Edvard Munch, known for “The Scream”? Jean-Michel Basquiat for his heavy lines and wild-marked Graffiti. The French artist, Odilon Redon for his obscure intriguing, scary, symbolist art. Dali for his unique version of surrealism.  Finally, Leonardo Da Vinci for his unquenchable obsession with advanced otherworldly, everything.  Did their art drive them mad or save them from insanity!?

Let’s face it. Artists think differently than the typical analytical types. We talk differently, and we deduce life, differently. We redefine the word, “expectation”.  I am going to go out on a limb and talk from personal experience about this subject. Art has been a lifesaver for me. In my early years, when the world came to me in full force, I would lose myself in painting. I could disappear for hours. Conversely, if I needed to focus on an issue, seeking resolution, art immersion was the answer. I learned that intense meditation practice could yield the same type of results as my art practice.  Every thought, welcome or unwelcome floats up to the surface like a balloon ready to pop.  While painting or later in sleep the answers to the question that I was pondering would float to the surface. Better yet, the difficult issue might just simply disappear. Painting is a creative shifting of energy to the positive.

Coincidentally, creating culinary recipes and creating art have a common ground. They are healing and focus both on physical and mental energy.   A keen example of an emerging artist is my older son. Mentally, he is an engineer through and through. He switched to our plant-based lifestyle, five years ago.  From this surfaced his natural artistic focus. Pure plant consumption brought forth intense added energy, as well as evaporated brain fog.  It translated to a love for active sports and a nonstop thirst for information on health and food. About three months into the transformation. He started creating recipes. He approached each combination like a science experiment. I planted the seed that my approach to cooking everything from scratch was the same as developing a painting. He naturally did the same. When not traveling with his work, he supports his local community in North Carolina, by teaching classes with his plant-based recipes. Art principles and processes take many forms and can be applied to almost any walk of life.

The painting in this article is from my Being Different Series. The series is about accepting others who may present differently or think differently. Humanity is always better when we see beauty in others.

The emotional experience of painting might relate to breathing. When painting, I find that breathing slows drastically, and time moves slowly as a turtle.  A peacefulness emerges. Colors are brighter, details are more vivid. There are blocks of time where thought disappears, and memory is nil.  Hands seem to move by themselves.  This is the same in mediation, TIME slows, lengthens, and disappears. During deep unadulterated meditation, it may seem like I have been developing a painting for five hours.  In truth, only one hour has passed.

So, is it insanity or genius that makes an artist? Were the artists of history examples of tapping into the unknown aspects of the mind and spirit?  It seems to me that the topic will continue to be intriguing!