Anne Stahl

Contemporary Artist

Thesis

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for helping me with this thesis :

• my thesis supervisor Tom Duffy.
• Prof.Dr.Reiner Michaelis for the interview.
• Ingi and Hannes for ideas, research and materials.
• Dr.Dr. Manfred in der Beeck.
• Magarete Platzer .
• those who returned the questionnaire.
• Brian and Kevin for the help with the computer.
• the DLCAD-library staff .
• the library staff at TCD and the ILAC-Centre.
• Ross for proofreading.

Introduction

The discussion of the relationship between art and madness within this thesis, is not intended to be a truly scientific work, but rather and investigative essay concentrating on providing only the most important and relevant information.

In order to avoid a probably largely fruitless discussion about what should be considered art and what should not, I will refer to creative as :

someone who :

• uses existing information in a new and original way
• has the ability to think productively
• is distinguished by :
  • flexibility
  • frankness
  • unconventional thinking
  • tolerance for frustration
  • the resilience to prevail against already established opinions

Hence the term art when used , only serves to illustrate the probable results of creativity.

The misuse of the term madness appears to play a fundamental role in the assumption of a relationship between creativity and madness. To this end I have asked Prof.Dr.R.Michaelis to give me a professional definition. Here is the essence of what he told me :

This definition would limit the number of truly mad artists a lot, since I suspect that the public would call nearly anyone mad who is distinctly different .