Art reflects life: as society and its institutions change, art remains as a record of historical thoughts and practices. The way in which society views and treats those suffering with mental illness varies depending on the contemporary theory for its cause and its place among society. As man progressed from the superstitious dogma on mental illness surrounding the Medieval period, theories and cures towards mental illness increased in their analytic methods, though it certainly took centuries to overcome the stigma surrounding it. Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia I (Figure 1), William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress: The Madhouse (Figure 2), and Vincent van Gogh’s Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe (Figure 3) reflect their period’s treatment of mental illnesses as uninformed compared to modern times, though each displays a psychological urge to understand the illness beyond religious thought as done in previous centuries. Dürer, in identifying and bestowing genius upon the state of melancholy, uses the four humors to glorify what modern psychology would diagnose as depression. By ending his rake’s descent to destitution in Bedlam Asylum, Hogarth portrays madness as base and the mentally ill as subhuman. Van Gogh, who suffered from mental illness himself, creates a unique perspective in that by trying to paint himself as sane he depicts nineteenth-century reactions towards insanity.
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Although Dürer, Hogarth, and Van Gogh reflect different understandings of what mental illness, each portray stereotypical views of mental illness in their society and attempt to address proper treatment (or lack thereof) on the mentally ill. Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia I (1512) is an engraving made in the style of the Northern Renaissance in sixteenth-century Germany. Fueled by the classical motifs of the Italian Renaissance while retaining in themes and principles its Medieval roots, Dürer and other Northern Renaissance painters sought to merge Northern artistic symbolism with the classically idealized anatomy of the South. The Northern European culture emphasized the philosophical ideals of Aristotle, who left heavenly matters alone and categorized that which was on the earth. This allowed Dürer to accomplish two things with this piece: the portrayal of depression as one of the four humors, which was an early manifestation of psychology, and the idealized depiction of the melancholic subject in a classical calm mingled with disguised symbolism of the North. This piece depicts an angelic personification of melancholia, one of the four humors, in a brooding position and surrounded by tools of the arts and sciences. The four humors were believed to control the body (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) and, when balanced, ensured that a person was in both good physical health and good mental health. This belief dated to classical times. Melancholy was considered of the four humors that which arose from a buildup of black gall in the body: the extreme sadness it caused could either result in insanity or creative genius. Melancholy would commonly be diagnosed as depression in contemporary psychology but was treated differently in the sixteenth-century than modern times. The artistic and scientific tools surrounding the personification of melancholy are, in the Northern Renaissance style of disguised symbolism, representative not only of the knowledge gained by melancholy but the genius of those who had a melancholic disposition. Dürer identifies himself with melancholy by portraying his artwork as at the pinnacle of his career and thus, it is more a self-portrait of mental illness than anything else. Melancholy is thus considered a two-edged sword: on the one hand, …show more content…
Like in Dürer’s Melancholia I, the piece portrays a personal view of mental illness but unlike Dürer, who declared himself genius in his melancholy, van Gogh seeks in painting himself to disassociate himself with mental illness. Weeks earlier van Gogh had been hospitalized after a dispute between the post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin and himself ended with van Gogh falling to delusion and cutting his left earlobe off; bleeding profusely, he collapsed in a pool of his own blood. While he recovered in the hospital, he fell into fits of hallucination that, once he had regained his senses, caused him guilt: “I find remorse, too,” he wrote to his brother Theo, “in thinking of the trouble that I’ve occasioned... however involuntarily it may
Although Dürer, Hogarth, and Van Gogh reflect different understandings of what mental illness, each portray stereotypical views of mental illness in their society and attempt to address proper treatment (or lack thereof) on the mentally ill. Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia I (1512) is an engraving made in the style of the Northern Renaissance in sixteenth-century Germany. Fueled by the classical motifs of the Italian Renaissance while retaining in themes and principles its Medieval roots, Dürer and other Northern Renaissance painters sought to merge Northern artistic symbolism with the classically idealized anatomy of the South. The Northern European culture emphasized the philosophical ideals of Aristotle, who left heavenly matters alone and categorized that which was on the earth. This allowed Dürer to accomplish two things with this piece: the portrayal of depression as one of the four humors, which was an early manifestation of psychology, and the idealized depiction of the melancholic subject in a classical calm mingled with disguised symbolism of the North. This piece depicts an angelic personification of melancholia, one of the four humors, in a brooding position and surrounded by tools of the arts and sciences. The four humors were believed to control the body (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) and, when balanced, ensured that a person was in both good physical health and good mental health. This belief dated to classical times. Melancholy was considered of the four humors that which arose from a buildup of black gall in the body: the extreme sadness it caused could either result in insanity or creative genius. Melancholy would commonly be diagnosed as depression in contemporary psychology but was treated differently in the sixteenth-century than modern times. The artistic and scientific tools surrounding the personification of melancholy are, in the Northern Renaissance style of disguised symbolism, representative not only of the knowledge gained by melancholy but the genius of those who had a melancholic disposition. Dürer identifies himself with melancholy by portraying his artwork as at the pinnacle of his career and thus, it is more a self-portrait of mental illness than anything else. Melancholy is thus considered a two-edged sword: on the one hand, …show more content…
Like in Dürer’s Melancholia I, the piece portrays a personal view of mental illness but unlike Dürer, who declared himself genius in his melancholy, van Gogh seeks in painting himself to disassociate himself with mental illness. Weeks earlier van Gogh had been hospitalized after a dispute between the post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin and himself ended with van Gogh falling to delusion and cutting his left earlobe off; bleeding profusely, he collapsed in a pool of his own blood. While he recovered in the hospital, he fell into fits of hallucination that, once he had regained his senses, caused him guilt: “I find remorse, too,” he wrote to his brother Theo, “in thinking of the trouble that I’ve occasioned... however involuntarily it may