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March 11, 2010
The Art of Mentally Ill and Eccentric People
In the February, 2010, issue of Clinical Psychiatry News, psychiatrist Roland Atkinson devotes his column Reel Life to five recent films featuring the lives of self taught outsider artists who are mentally ill or eccentric.
The most successful of the films, Seraphine, won seven Cesar awards for 2009. It depicts the pre-World War 1 discovery of the highly delicate and colorful flower paintings by Seraphine, an obscure socially isolated externally morose French cleaning woman. The discoverer was art critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde who nurtured her successful career as an artist. When he was hard hit by the depression he had to withdraw his support, and Seraphine soon became mentally ill and spent the last years of her life in a mental hospital.
Other films he discussed were In a Dream, My Nikifor, and Junebug.
Atkonson writes, "The main lesson for psychiatrists offered by outsider artists is their demonstration of abilities to create rich, often stunningly unique works, a useful counterpoint to our customary fixation on psychopathology and dysfunction."
Related Links:
- Subscription required for full text: "Visions From Outside the Box ," Roland Atkinson, Clinical Psychiatry News, Vol. 38, Issue 2, Page 10, February 2010.
- Seraphine
- In a Dream
- My Nikifor, a review at Culture.PL
- Junebug
Posted by admin at March 11, 2010 03:12 PM