Dialogues between art and psychiatry (I) – the case of American Expressionism

Among the many areas of intersection between art and psychiatry, this narrative review explores how certain biographical aspects may be relevant from a psychopathological perspective in the case of famous visual artists. Based on the investigation of electronic databases and related data, significant sources were selected regarding how the lives and works of four genius creators, representatives of the New York School – namely, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning – were affected by the presence of severe psychopathological manifestations. These collected data focus on the causes that contributed to the tragic deaths of the first three artists and how de Kooning managed to continue his creative work even after being diagnosed with neurocognitive disorder associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Also, these famous cases have encouraged the evolution of research at the intersection of psychiatry and visual arts – for example, new terms have been created (“polloglyphs” and “creativity in the midst of dementia”), instruments for assessing esthetic experiences (Rothko Experience Scale), or methods to determine the structural complexity of artworks, with potential neuropsychodiagnostic relevance (fractal analysis). Each case study also presents certain conclusions with clinical applicability, from the need to associate psychotherapy with pharmacotherapy for people at risk of suicide to the active screen for preparatory gestures in patients at risk of autolysis, or from the importance of early trauma in the pathogenesis of major depression to the analysis of intricate etiological factors in the onset of neurocognitive disorders.