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Creativity and Disease
In this twelfth revised and enlarged edition of a ground-breaking study on the life and work of some of our greatest artists, Dr. Philip Sandblom explores the intriguing connections between illness, art and creativity. He elucidates the ways in which specific ailments inform and influence the creative personality and discusses the effects of mental illness, drug addiction and severe pain on 140 authors, artists and composers.
- GenresScienceArtNonfiction
Paperback
First published December 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 3, 2025
This was a fascinating read. It is
amazing how physical handicap
various diseases and chronic
conditions of the body influenced
the work of writers, artists, and
musicians.
In many cases, the physical afflictions and Illness actually enhanced and elevated their work to masterpieces in their
genre.
The book lists dozens of artists
and the physical obstacles they
worked through to achieve
excellence in their field.
amazing how physical handicap
various diseases and chronic
conditions of the body influenced
the work of writers, artists, and
musicians.
In many cases, the physical afflictions and Illness actually enhanced and elevated their work to masterpieces in their
genre.
The book lists dozens of artists
and the physical obstacles they
worked through to achieve
excellence in their field.
March 23, 2019
Oh boy. I had a lot of hopes for this book and was very disappointed. I'll structure this review by listing everything I didn't like about it.
1) He provides way too many examples without analyzing any of them with any sort of depth. It reads merely as a list of anecdotes, stating artists, their diagnoses, and one or two of their works. If someone wanted to know which artists were ill in their lives, this would be a great read. But for an in-depth analysis of how illness affects art (ie. the literal title of this work)? Not so much. The brief analyses he does give are often very flawed - for example, using Plath's poetry as an example of what her suicide was like. This makes absolutely no sense.
2) He says that he felt galled at someone criticizing doctors for using art to diagnose creators, but then never explains why this is beneficial (other than the implication that one can learn about art from diseased creators and vice-versa, but it seems to me that applying a modern diagnosis isn't necessary to that analysis). I completely agree with that person's assessment that doctors shouldn't touch art if all they're looking to do is find case studies to diagnose with modern medicine.
3) He uses illness and suffering interchangeably, ie. simply argues for the effect of suffering on art. Of course, suffering is a factor in many or most illnesses. But an argument on how ILLNESS affects art (as he claims the argument is) would explore how different types of illnesses affect art differently. He very, very rarely does this (one good example would be Monet's eye disease; this is one of the only examples I can think of where he actually argues about the illness rather than suffering in general). This wouldn't be a huge issue, except that he literally structured the book into different diseases. With this structure, there should be different arguments for each of them.
4) It is very clear that he is not a writer. The amount of times he incorrectly or excessively uses exclamation marks...
5) There are a few very problematic views in here that are not critically analyzed. The main one being that since illness inspires creativity, cures will cost us great art. I absolutely cannot stand this argument. He also almost completely disregards history and treats, for example, Plath's mental illness and Lord Byron's mental illness in the exact same way, as though their contemporary conceptions of mental illness had no bearing on how they thought of their situation and, thus, how they expressed it in their artwork. He takes a universal approach to it which is truly beyond me when he's dealing with such a historically grounded concept as illness, especially mental illness. (Not to mention that they did not regard mental illness as an illness at all until the Victorian era!)
6) There is no thesis! He makes a few different arguments about illness and art (illness inspires/induces creativity and genius, art is therapeutic, art provides insight into illness, etc.) but has no overarching argument which I found very frustrating. He even argues counterpoints, stating that illness can stifle or even destroy creativity and that language cannot express pain, and does not ever reconcile these points with his other arguments. Not to mention that his evidence is incredibly shaky to support those various arguments. They rely on his weak interpretations of the art and his unbelievably biased sample (of course illness has had a positive effect on almost all of the artists he mentions - they are all successful artists!). It seems to me that he had preconceived ideas of how illness and art interact (particularly the cliché ~art overcomes disability~), and thus does not actually conduct any kind of in-depth analysis or study.
It's very frustrating. This is such an interesting topic and could have been such a great work, but it's just not. There are far too many flaws. That being said, I did enjoy the use of artwork throughout, so if anything it was visually pleasant, if intellectually infuriating.
1) He provides way too many examples without analyzing any of them with any sort of depth. It reads merely as a list of anecdotes, stating artists, their diagnoses, and one or two of their works. If someone wanted to know which artists were ill in their lives, this would be a great read. But for an in-depth analysis of how illness affects art (ie. the literal title of this work)? Not so much. The brief analyses he does give are often very flawed - for example, using Plath's poetry as an example of what her suicide was like. This makes absolutely no sense.
2) He says that he felt galled at someone criticizing doctors for using art to diagnose creators, but then never explains why this is beneficial (other than the implication that one can learn about art from diseased creators and vice-versa, but it seems to me that applying a modern diagnosis isn't necessary to that analysis). I completely agree with that person's assessment that doctors shouldn't touch art if all they're looking to do is find case studies to diagnose with modern medicine.
3) He uses illness and suffering interchangeably, ie. simply argues for the effect of suffering on art. Of course, suffering is a factor in many or most illnesses. But an argument on how ILLNESS affects art (as he claims the argument is) would explore how different types of illnesses affect art differently. He very, very rarely does this (one good example would be Monet's eye disease; this is one of the only examples I can think of where he actually argues about the illness rather than suffering in general). This wouldn't be a huge issue, except that he literally structured the book into different diseases. With this structure, there should be different arguments for each of them.
4) It is very clear that he is not a writer. The amount of times he incorrectly or excessively uses exclamation marks...
5) There are a few very problematic views in here that are not critically analyzed. The main one being that since illness inspires creativity, cures will cost us great art. I absolutely cannot stand this argument. He also almost completely disregards history and treats, for example, Plath's mental illness and Lord Byron's mental illness in the exact same way, as though their contemporary conceptions of mental illness had no bearing on how they thought of their situation and, thus, how they expressed it in their artwork. He takes a universal approach to it which is truly beyond me when he's dealing with such a historically grounded concept as illness, especially mental illness. (Not to mention that they did not regard mental illness as an illness at all until the Victorian era!)
6) There is no thesis! He makes a few different arguments about illness and art (illness inspires/induces creativity and genius, art is therapeutic, art provides insight into illness, etc.) but has no overarching argument which I found very frustrating. He even argues counterpoints, stating that illness can stifle or even destroy creativity and that language cannot express pain, and does not ever reconcile these points with his other arguments. Not to mention that his evidence is incredibly shaky to support those various arguments. They rely on his weak interpretations of the art and his unbelievably biased sample (of course illness has had a positive effect on almost all of the artists he mentions - they are all successful artists!). It seems to me that he had preconceived ideas of how illness and art interact (particularly the cliché ~art overcomes disability~), and thus does not actually conduct any kind of in-depth analysis or study.
It's very frustrating. This is such an interesting topic and could have been such a great work, but it's just not. There are far too many flaws. That being said, I did enjoy the use of artwork throughout, so if anything it was visually pleasant, if intellectually infuriating.
June 9, 2023
En fantastisk samling av poeter, musiker, författare och…. deras sjukdomar, både kroppsliga och psykiska! Och deras konst genom prisma av sjukdomen. En bok av Aha-upplevelser! Skrivet av läkare!
December 20, 2025
With chapters on various conditions and struggles, the book shares how various artists handled different conditions. Not as entertaining, but inspiring in a way.
August 12, 2023
A great study—short, aphoristic, occasionally beautiful, Sandblom is never out of his league, always comfortably presenting the material that belongs in a volume like this. There are some lacunae (eg. no Frieda Kahlo) and Sandblom’s personal tastes permit the over-representation of certain Dutch poets, but that can be permitted, at least in the name of exposing a new audience to forgotten artists Sandblom might like revived.
August 17, 2008
I've always been interested in the relationship between illness/disease/pain and creativity (naturally), so...I found this book to be very interesting. Especially a good read for those who can relate.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews