Looking back in history at many of the great men and women that have created art, a common denominator is usually found: traces of manic-depression. A direct relation between the manic-depressive and the creative behavior is still being argued among the scientific community. However, artistic evidence usually shows a strong correlation between them. Evidence of this can be seen in the works of Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and Vincent Van Gogh, to name a few.
According to D. Jablow Hershman, who has conducted research on the topic, “mania is a spectrum, and most people who experience it spend most of their manic hours where the spectrum merges with normalcy. This variety of mania makes them energetic, cheerful, optimistic, friendly, and productive.” Since mania covers such a wide range, it becomes harder to determine which individuals are actually benefited from it by creating art, and which actually need psychiatric evaluation. Whatever the case, it seems that manic-depression influences people in a destructive or constructive manner. An interesting fact to analyze, considering that new treatments and drugs geared to the complete suppression of manic-depression are being developed everyday.
When evaluating artistic evidence and relating it to the life of the artists that have suffered manic-depression, it becomes clear that the link between manic-depression and the artistic behavior cannot be denied. The real question lies in the degree of correlation between the two and the differentiation between the artistic thought and insanity. The lines seem to be blurred. However, whichever the degree of correlation, it becomes apparent that manic-depression, although a perturbing and potentially harmful psychological condition, is very fertile in the field of the arts, allowing the birth of many of the world's greatest pieces of literature, sculpture, painting, and music.
