In Books
The 1996 book Touched with Fire, by American psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, looks at the relationship between bipolar disorder and artistic creativity. It contains a number of case histories of dead people who are described as probably having suffered from bipolar disorder.
The 2012 book Tortured Artists, by the American journalist Christopher Zara, shows the universal nature of the tortured artist stereotype and how it applies to all of the creative disciplines, including film, theater, literature, music, and visual art. The artists profiled in the book have generally made major contributions to their respective mediums (Charles Schulz, Charlie Parker, Lenny Bruce, Michelangelo, Madonna, Warhol, Amy Winehouse, and dozens of others), but the book shows how, in each case, their art was inspired by pain and suffering.
Read more about this topic: Tortured Artist
Famous quotes containing the word books:
“The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one’s mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.... Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)