Picture this: you’re an artist scoping out fellow artists’ paintings on social media, trying to see what people commonly post. You see post after post of vent art. Or worse – depictions of someone actively self-harming. Brutal, bloody, detailed, and all too informative. Your stomach churns. This isn’t what you expected. You check the comments in disbelief—user after user praising the ‘aesthetic,’ calling it cute, and saying how they wished their depressive episodes looked like this. There’s even praise for the self-harm posts. Comments saying that this post encouraged them to self-harm. One can refer to art that expresses one’s frustrations, panic, or general life as ‘vent art.’ This type of art can encompass any stage in self-harm, traumatic situations, or depictions of illnesses. As a beginner both in art and in social media marketing, coming across self-harm posts or vent art is discouraging. These posts come from a place of mental illness or those chasing the clout of being mentally ill online, often by young and easily tricked individuals. Young and easily tricked individuals utilize this stereotype within their posts because they believe that they will become popular thanks to the stereotype or because they think it’s morbidly beautiful. People are not coming up with the idea of romanticizing harm which might surprise some. Instead, they’re advocating a stereotype hundreds of years old, called the ‘tortured artist’ stereotype. We should not continue to praise and romanticize the stereotype of the tortured artist, since it harms artists of all types.

The tortured artist stereotype is the romanticized perception that creativity comes from torment or madness. We can see this stereotype frequently used in modern media, especially on social media or in the movies. Merriam-Webster defines a stereotype as, “an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.” In other words, a stereotype is a ‘dumbed-down’ characterization of a group created from biases. Stereotypes are often negative due to the oversimplification and overgeneralization elements. Diminishing a person’s being into a stereotype is not kind to do since people are much more complex than possible labels. The ‘tortured artist’ trope in our media stems from centuries of classification and can and traces back to the Ancient Greeks (Mathews), illustrating the deep roots of this stereotype. Movies reference the stereotype as a way to bring in humor, to bring in a quick laugh at the expense of the artist. People on social media reference the trope in comments or someone talks about their life. As a society, we are accustomed to labeling artists as tortured. Peter Plagans is an artist and described as a prominent and influential art critic for five decades. Plagans says, “With Goethe’s 1774 novel “The Sufferings of Young Werther,” a romantic idea of the artist as a hypersensitive outsider was born, and it reached a fevered peak with the tragedy of van Gogh.” Creating a romantic atmosphere around a suffering artist has been around for many years, as we see with Geothe. Because people influence or otherwise promote the tortured artist stereotype, others think it’s okay to use. These individuals do not see the harm in stereotyping others as tortured artists because society has normalized the behavior. Plagans mentions van Gogh, or Vincent van Gogh. The general public best knows Vincent van Gogh as being the quintessential tortured artist. Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in the Netherlands and died in 1890 in France and is most known for his oil paintings done in the latter half of his life, during the Post-Impressionistic art movement (“Vincent van Gogh”). Media wonders about Van Gogh’s life as they look at his splotchy paintings, romanticizing his suffering. Van Gogh is a well-known painter associated with this trope but the tortured artist trope spread much farther beyond paint it has been also seen in writers. Vincent van Gogh’s mania, Sylvia Plath’s depression, and Ernest Hemingway’s alcoholism (Ellis) contribute to the general public’s knowledge of this stereotype, giving it context within famous artisans. By promoting the stereotype through familiar artists, we understand what the stereotype is and how to react to it. This then allows us, the viewers, to use the tortured artist stereotype in our day-to-day labeling. Jack Neath, an online journalist, says, “This stereotype is often used to add a sense of dark romanticism […] adding the sense of drama and tragedy to a legacy […].” By utilizing the tortured artist stereotype, an artist’s legacy becomes dramatic and depth is created to inspire viewers to romanticize the turmoil the artist went through. Romanticizing handles things by idealizing them and making them seem better than they are. This can create a false narrative that may persist throughout history as one of the few representations of something or someone.

Many popular artists become defined by a mental illness, and their entire works get boxed into the tortured artist label unfairly. These artists become defined by the stereotype and new viewers perceive their works as turbulent and full of suffering, whether or not those pieces were made during a time of intense turmoil. Jackson Pollock was an artist in the Abstract Expressionism art movement from the 1930s until the late 1940s, who created huge speculative drip paintings. “Both Pollock and van Gogh were driven, obsessed and disturbed–and made themselves great artists only at great personal cost. (Neither lived to 50,)” says Plagans. While in recovery from his alcoholism, Pollock made most of his paintings in the countryside of New York while Van Gogh suffered from a mental illness and made his paintings in the countryside outside of Paris. Van Gogh is also known for his mysterious death on top of his other struggles which only solidifies the stereotype for some people. “[…] it was my destiny to see the world in a devastating way, to fuel my creativity” (“Kat: Defeating the ‘Tortured Artist’ Stereotype”). As this person fell deep into their mental turmoil, they defined themselves and their creative journey through the viewpoint of their turmoil. The author of the article expressed that their personal turmoil was in part thanks to the external voices who labeled the author as a tortured artist, claiming the author only finds creativity while suffering. The tortured artist stereotype gets used so often and on random individuals because the labeler learns about the artist’s mental health – or the possibility of being mentally ill. A common concept within art is artists expressing their mental illness or their mood through their artwork. John Matthews, who is a psychotherapist working in his field for 10 years, says, “An artist is more likely to disclose mental illness than the average worker. […] We know that artists are more likely to reveal personal experiences in their work, so we are more likely to be curious about their personal histories than we are for non-artists.” Artists express their personal life experiences through their artwork, often making the works more vivid and impactful as they share them. Other high-stress professionals, like nurses or public safety workers, don’t express their personal experiences in their work since that is not how they’re structured (Lee et al.). Professional artists may choose to express their turmoil through their job – which is art. Nursing or public safety workers do not have the freedom to express their emotions through their profession. If they did, there would be a lot of panic in high-stress situations from the healthcare workers and the patients. Vent art can be seen in all art skill levels due to the freedom of expression offered along with the lowered expectations and judgment from the viewers.

Therapy done through art is becoming more and more popular. Art is a good recovery for those suffering from physical and mental ailments. Many people commonly view art as a way to express their most private feelings and memories, which can utilized in art therapy. Online journalist Jack Neath says, “Art and music therapies are becoming increasingly prevalent in a variety of settings such as rehabilitation centres and hospitals […].” Art therapists encourage their patients to draw their struggles, regardless of their artistic skill. People can express their trauma through drawing the scene or they can get away from their struggles by creating something else. This style of therapy is becoming more popular as Neath explains. Rehabilitation centers like behavior therapy, addiction recovery, or even occupational therapy can use art or music therapy as a method of recovery. Hospitals see a lot of sick patients, especially in the emergency room. Since people process things differently, some types of therapy won’t work for everyone. Trying something new, like art or music therapy, is another way for a patient to recover. Tami Gavron has a doctorate in philosophy and currently works in an art therapy department. “The [study’s] findings have shown that expressive activities encourage a sense of mastery and control, and support the successful neurobiological processing of traumatic narrative and imagery” (Gavron). Using art to process traumatic events helps create a feeling of control within individuals. Utilizing this knowledge when implementing art or music therapy can help create appropriate situations in therapy. Knowing that the creation of art can allow individuals to gain more control over their lives and can also help other people who aren’t in therapy. They can create art and become empowered by the creation outside of therapy as a way to self-regulate or for other ways to stabilize one’s self. “Ironically enough,” says Zoe Harris, “Van Gogh’s The Starry Night depicts the view from the artist’s room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a French psychiatric institution. Van Gogh’s time away from society to mend his damaged mental health resorted in his most popular work.” Van Gogh created his most popular work while in recovery. The Starry Night painting is one of the most famous artistic works ever. He painted prolifically, with his later works produced often in times of mania or while intoxicated. However, the best well-created pieces were created during this time of recovery. “In her 2015 study Death, Bereavement and Creativity, Kathryn Graddy analysed sales data and museum acquisition histories for 48 artists such as Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, and Pollock between 1900 and 1920. She found that paintings produced in the year following the loss of a close friend or family were sold for lower prices and were less likely to appear in museum collections,” says Neath. Professional art curators and collectors are a large part of the art world too. These curators and collectors help find lost pieces from artists and show artworks to the public in various styles of exhibitions, formal and not. Each time the artwork is exhibited, the curated exhibitions showcase the artist’s image, which may or may not be positively received. Curators and collectors find personal meaning within art, often monetarily. The art analytical study done by Kathryn Graddy found that pieces created during mourning were not appealing to the general public. While still these grief-filled pieces are still important, they do not resonate like other pieces done by the same artist, especially to a general audience. Van Gogh’s “Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear” was made in 1889 after being released from a mental hospital and features a self-inflicted wound after falling into depression (The Courtauld Institute of Art). This piece is not as popular as Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” painted in the same year, 1889 (The Museum of Modern Art). These two pieces are placed in juxtaposition – one made in turmoil and lesser known, while the other was made during a time of peace and became well known.

One might say that ‘tortured artists’ are scientifically linked to artists having mental illnesses, which implies it is inevitable that those with mental illnesses will be an artist eventually. Many studies have been done to quantify how many mentally ill artists there are within the field. These studies first focus on the largely known artists, like Van Gogh, Pollock, along with others.“[…] the great minds of the artistic community are more apt to be psychologically tormented by their own personal demons,” says Audra Nemirow, a journalist for the United States-based newspaper Reading Eagle. Nemirow argues that artists’ minds are likely to be tormented, especially so if they are great artists. Artists are often found working long hours by themselves. Their artistic processes and master techniques start in the mind and then are applied to canvases, paper, or any other medium. It can be argued that sometimes these processes get convoluted by mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Nemirow mentions a scientific study done on mentally ill artists, titled “Touched with Fire, Manic-depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament,” which was done by Professor Kay Redfield Jamison. Professor Jamison is a psychiatric professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Later studies examined the methods that Professor Jamison used, saying, “[…] writers and artists show a vastly disproportionate rate of the affective disorders manic-depressive and depressive illness” (Zaman et al.). Essentially, writers and artists with mental illnesses are focused on and are the targets of various studies, rather than having a variety of people with and without mental illnesses. Scientists can have a more comprehensive study by having an even mix of individuals who have mental illnesses and those who do not. However, this disproportion can be explained. One might notice symptoms of a mental illness, so they go to a psychiatrist to find out their diagnosis. Other people might not feel unwell or might not notice any symptoms, so they don’t get diagnosed, even if they might have a high-functioning mental illness. A diagnosis from a professional signifies if someone has something or not, in this case a mental illness. Studies then ask if an individual has a diagnosis and if so, what it is. This creates a disproportionate rate that Zaman et al. mentioned. There are other reasons why a disproportionate rate exists, such as lower testing in other careers or fields. Studies done on artists are often filled with individuals who are diagnosed with a mental illness because scientists seek out these artists in order to prove their point. This is an unscientific way to gain subjects for a study because it limits the sample size. With time, scientific communities learn which studies were done unscientifically. This allows scientists to go back and re-examine studies, especially ones like Professor Jamison’s, where all aspects were not included or considered in the study.

Idealizing the ‘tortured artist’ stereotype is harmful and should not be praised anymore. This stereotype is thousands of years old and is deeply rooted in our media, which makes labeling artists easy and thoughtless. Various popular artists get sorted into these labels due to their mental illness and society defines them by the label. Instead of seeing art as a result of suffering, one can use art as a tool to express their feelings about ailments they have. Creativity sparks positive emotions that can be utilized to make art of all types, making an artistic reliance on suffering unnecessary. Art done in a place of mental turmoil isn’t does not have a negative effect on individuals. However, the public’s belief that one must be ill to create a remarkable piece is misplaced. When viewing a Van Gogh collection online, don’t let other people’s stereotypes affect how much you appreciate his work. Acknowledge his paintings for what they are – works done by a master of art.

Works Cited