Tragidy of kittens: A muse turned sour

http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=skitsophernic+cat&sourceid=Mozilla-search#

Louis Wain (5 August 1860 – July 4, 1939) was an English artist best known for his drawings, which consistently featured anthropomorphised large-eyed cats and kittens. In his later years he suffered from schizophrenia, which, according to some psychologists, can be seen in his works.


This makes me incredibly sad. Here is a man, a skilled artist, who's bliss in life came from paintings and drawings of cute little kittens. That's just such a simple source of joy that any human being can understand on some level. Here is some of his early work.





You get the idea. Well at some point in his life the man develops schizophrenia. And you can see it in his work. He had feelings of being tormented by malignant spirits and his situation just degraded over time.

You can see the progression chronologically left to right in these pictures.






I wont deny that I love his later paintings, I see them as vastly more interesting from an artistic standpoint.

But from a human standpoint it just makes me sad. As his illness grew worse, and his paints more abstract and demonic... don't you think there was some small, tragic part of him curled up in the corner of a warped and tormented mind saying: "I just miss fluffy little kittens"?

Fuck.. I went and depressed myself.

 

Thanks for posting this, i had no idea that happened to Wain. His later drawings were definitely cooler and had a hint of psychedelia to them, I really hope they were just creative visions and not brought on by schizophrenia. I mean hell patterns are pretty cool right? If I draw them does that mean I'm part schizo too?

Sad story for sure though

 

lol

I am obviously unhinged, since the 'early work' is freaking me out, and the later stuff seems to be an antidote.

 

Mental anguish often causes great creativity. There was a Canadian artist who, in his later years, discovered that he was dying from inoperable cancer. He then became greatly depressed and created, "Some of his best, most inspired work." Many felt his work had stagnated quite a bit over the years, including his good friends. Within the last year and a half to two years he created what is now considered his best work. Many were sad to see his emotional state, but he went out with a great creative bang.

Walt Whitman's 'deathbed edition' of 'Leaves of Grass' is considered one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written.

Edgar Allan Poe lived an extremely depressed, sad life full of mental anguish. He's still considered one of the greatest writers of all time, and is known as the creator of the science fiction story as well as the detective mystery. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has attributed his inspiration for Sherlock Holmes to Poe's stories.

Also, just throwing this out there, looking at the first picture in the original post; perhaps the man was never truly 'sane'.

 

'The thinker, and the artists likewise, whose better self has taken refuge in his work, feels an almost malicious joy when he sees how his body and his spirit are being slowly broken down and destroyed by time: it is as though he observed from a corner a thief working away at his money-chest, while knowing that the chest is empty and all the treasure it contained safe.'

 

Sam. Your interpretation of sadness, I think is overblown based on the information in the article. It said he lived his final 15 years in peace, no small accomplishment. All of us are acquainted with infirmity in our lives.