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Aside from being startled at the intensity of his hopelessness, it is impossible to overlook the poetry and beauty of these words by Abraham Lincoln. Though Lincoln was never an artist, he was and is a creative and original thinker.
Many people find poetry, paint, pencil, oils, and words the most effective means to communicate the magnitude of these emotions. Flowers and sunshine were not the primary motivators of the modern art movement. When artists turned their eyes from the drawing rooms and portraiture of the nobility, what they saw was horror.
At the turn of the century and the beginning of the modern age, there was an anti-war sentiment; the first world war, chemical warfare, the birth of modern psychotherapy and industrialization, and naturally, the language of internal suffering became best suited to communicate fear of the New Age.
Art evolved into iconic images of despair, sadness and alienation such as The Scream (The Cry) by Edvard Munch, which could very well have been painted by Abraham Lincoln when faced with the specter of a Civil War! The subject of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night was not only the night sky, but the psychiatric center at Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole where he was once a patient. In an unprecedented style he was able to communicate loneliness, alienation and confusion.
No doubt art and its connection to mental illness will continue to be analyzed, misunderstood, ignored or celebrated. No doubt creativity and mental illness will always be linked.
Here in New York, there are many organizations with opportunities to experience works of art by people with mental health conditions: The Bridge Artist, The Rita Project and The Living Museum at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, to name a few. These talented artists awe and inspire, and have mastered the art of coloring outside of the lines. These artists, rather than become paralyzed by the drama in their lives, pursue a language of expression.
Bound by the intensity of these emotions, many find the medium of poetry, paint, pencil, oils, and words to be the only means in which to communicate the enormity of an unimaginable experience. No doubt art and its connection to mental illness will continue to be analyzed, misunderstood, ignored or celebrated. No doubt creativity and mental illness will always be linked.
Do we have more insight [as mentally ill people]? Individually, yes. We know what we feel. We are intimately connected to our alter egos, our darker sides.