Through A Glass Darkly

Untitled by Martin Rameriz

Martin Rameriz (1895-1963) created nearly 300 drawings of remarkable visual clarity and expressive power. In 2007, The New York Times called the Mexican artist "simply one of the greatest artists of the 20th century." What is so remarkable about his achievement is that all of his work was created inside a mental institution, the DeWitt State Hospital in northern California.

Scientists have studied the link between creativity and mental illness and the lines between the two are sometimes not very clear. One study suggests that creative people often share more personality traits with the mentally ill than "normal" people in less creative pursuits. Connie Strong and her co-author, Dr. Terence Ketter, measured creativity and personality traits in 48 patients with bipolar disorder and 47 healthy people without a creative path in life. They found that both creative students and those with bipolar disorders shared several personality traits. Such individuals were more open, more neurotic, and more moody than the other study participants. Their results were published in The Journal of Affective Disorders.

In a 1987 study, Nancy C. Andreasen examined 30 writers and found that 80% had experienced at least one episode of major depression, hypomania, or mania. Andreasen also examined 30 controls and found that 0% had experienced some form of mental disorder.

It appears that the most common mental disorder among creative thinkers is bipolar disorder, although schizophrenia, as in the case of Martin Rameriz, is not all that uncommon. (Remember Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash in the movie, A Beautiful Mind?).

Now the big question. Is the artistic brain wired differently than "non-artistic" ones, which then leads to mental illness or does a person suffering from a mental disorder seek a form of healing through their art? Certainly there are artists who are not mentally ill and there are mentally ill persons who are not artists. At present the answers are not clear at all.

Just paint it!