What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a severe long term mental health condition. It causes a range of different psychological symptoms. Schizophrenia is often described as a type of psychosis. This means the person may not always be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.
Schizophrenia in Art
Louis Wain
Louis Wain was an English illustrator (1860-1939) who became well known for his illustrations of anthropomorphic cats. The big-eyed cats, who are usually in social situations, such as games or dating, were not initially created on a commission. Although Wain was already known by the public, he began to draw cats to amuse his wife. Unfortunately, shortly after he married, Wain lost his wife to cancer. And her death was the trigger for a deep depression in the artist’s life.
At age 57, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a disorder that affects not only a person’s way of thinking, but also their behaviour. Wain began to act aggressively, and so spent the last 15 years of his life in psychiatric institutions. |
It was not only his personality that was affected: His works of art also began to have a style less and less similar to his initial artworks. His cats, previously smiling and cuddly, began to show different traits, they became more geometric and more colourful. Most of these psychedelic kittens were born when Wain was hospitalised in Napsbury Hospital, where the artist eventually died.
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