For many years debate has raged to establish a link between creative genius and madness.
Despite debate unearthing some evidence that most people who are intelligent or creative exhibit some form of madness, the media has exaggerated this correlation.
Though relationships between madness and genius are quite blurry, not everyone who’s mad is a genius just as not everyone who’s a genius is mad.
While several examples of many of history’s most celebrated creative geniuses who were mentally ill have been given, there are almost an equal number of geniuses who never suffered from any form of mental illness.
Top on this list are renowned artists like Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo to literary giants Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe all who suffered from some mental illness.
The mental illness that is now mostly associated with creativity is bipolar disorder though the link between “madness” and “genius” is much older, dating back at least to the time of Aristotle.
The Ancient Greeks believed that creativity was a gift from the gods, especially the Muses whom they believed controlled the arts and sciences.
The idea of a complete work of art emerging without conscious thought or effort was reinforced by the views of the Romantic era.
In her famous book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Kay Redfield Jamison summarises studies of mood-disorder rates in writers, poets and artists.
The author also exposes research that identifies mood disorders in such famous writers and artists as Ernest Hemingway (who shot himself after electroconvulsive treatment), Virginia Woolf (who drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on), composer Robert Schumann (who died in a mental institution), and even the famed visual artist Michelangelo.
Another famous and much-quoted research done on more than one million people by Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, reported a link between creative occupations and mental illnesses.
Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, and were almost twice as likely as the general population to kill themselves.
Dancers and photographers were also more likely to have bipolar disorder.
A recent study book Tortured Artists, by the American arts journalist Christopher Zara written in 2012 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 made major contributions to their respective mediums (Charles Schulz, Charlie Parker, Lenny Bruce, Michelangelo, Madonna, Andy Warhol, Amy Winehouse, and dozens of others).
In each case, the author attempts to make a connection between the art and the artist’s personal suffering especially depression.
Being low has been identified as a period when artists are at their peak of creativity. Bob Dylan disclosed in an interview that he usually writes songs when he is sad.
Biblically, the book of Ecclesiastes in verse 1:17 which reads And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit somehow highlights the link between wisdom or creativity and depression.
In verse 18 we are told that For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
However, some researchers have debunked the associations between madness and creativity calling it a romantic folly.
However, they have failed to come with concrete evidence to successfully challenge the proponents of the mad-artist principle.
In countries like Britain, the mad-artist principle was fuelled by stories from the Bethlem hospital a mental home to several significant artists, perhaps most famously Richard Dadd, who in 1843 was institutionalised at the age of 26 after undergoing a psychotic fit during which he murdered his father.
Dadd was a serious painter whose work did come to take on some of the strange juxtapositions and eerie remoteness of his condition, which was probably schizophrenia.
There has been more debate on artists who abuse drugs to ascertain if their mental behaviour is inherent or has to do with substance abuse.
In Jamaica a classic example is that of Don Drummond who was a Jamaican ska trombonist and composer.
He was one of the original members of The Skatalites, and composed many of their tunes.
In 1965 Drummond was convicted of the murder of his long-time girlfriend, Anita “Marguerita” Mahfood, an exotic rhumba dancer and singer, on 1 January 1965.
He was ruled criminally insane and imprisoned at Bellevue Asylum, Kingston, where he remained until his death four years later.
Another example is that of Lee “Scratch” Perry a highly gifted Jamaican music producer noted for his innovative studio techniques and production values.
Perry was one of the pioneers in the development of dub music with his early adoption of effects and remixing to create new instrumental or vocal versions of existing reggae tracks.
Aptly nicknamed as the mad professor, Lee Scratch Perry is really eccentric or even mad since he at one time burnt his studio, the Black Ark studio.
He also believed all objects have divinity and thus at one time worshipped bananas and was once seen walking backwards in the streets of Kingston.
Yet this is the man who worked with top Jamaican reggae artists like the late Bob Marley and many other great reggae artists exposing their music to the world.
Then we had the late Sun Ra who was a highly productive jazz musician, composer, poet and bandleader best known for his “cosmic” philosophies on life and music, and for leading his musical ensemble, the Arkestra.
After moving to Chicago in 1945, Ra who claimed he was not a human being but an angel gained important experience working with a growing number of blues and jazz singers, composers and bandleaders, including Wynonie Harris, Fletcher Henderson and Coleman Hawkins.
In Zambia, maybe the classic example of the mad-artist theory is that of Akwila Thompson Simpasa, who is probably the best visual artist this country has ever produced.
Throughout his life, Simpasa suffered from mental illness which got worse with age leading to a complete mental breakdown by the time he died.
Simpasa was an internationally-acclaimed Zambian artist who had contributed ci-Bemba lines on Eddy Grant’s song Hello Africa featured on the Message Man album when he was studying in the UK.
He was a highly gifted artist who at one time announced that he would be releasing an album to be called Akanezala (razor blade).
He said some of the songs to appear on the album would include I’ll Tell God, Mukwalima and Lwakupzya (a spiritual song).
The artist also said he was going to get permission from President Kenneth Kaunda to include words from his book ‘Letters To My Children.’
Like their counterparts in Europe, some creative local Zambian artists have exhibited traits of mild mental illness and eccentric behaviour.
However, more research is needed to ascertain the link between creativity and madness.