PERSONAL WORK

Emin is not, of course, alone in this. The greatest artists across the world and throughout the ages have seen the world in a different way, using that vision to produce provocative and thought-provoking work. From Damien Hirst (famous for his animals in formaldehyde) and Grayson Perry (“the nation’s favourite transvestite potter”) to the Chapman brothers, (who created a series of mannequins of children with genitals in place of facial features) the artists’ strength often lies in pushing the boundaries of convention.

Their ability to do this, says Hobson, rests in their ability to tune into and use their emotions in a very different way to most people. “Artists are able to be honest about what they go through, to give their experiences a shape and a purpose. People in more practical occupations, the lawyers, the teachers, the doctors, don’t necessarily value the difficult or the traumatic in the same way. They have to manage their emotions in order to do their jobs. But for an artist, creation is their job.” This means a greater sensitivity, a higher awareness of feelings, and the ability to turn them into provocative, fascinating artwork. “Emin could have thought about her past boyfriends and simply had a rant to friends. Instead she used that experience to create an intimate, crafted and incredibly personal piece of work.”

Others believe that there is more to an artist’s mind than a heightened emotional awareness. Many psychological studies have focused on the minds of artists and a pattern of unhappy or lonely childhoods have often been noted. “Artists are usually highly sensitive individuals who may have experienced trauma which pushed them into art as a form of escapism, self-expression or therapy,” says Professor Gordon Claridge, professor of abnormal psychology at Oxford University. Emin, for example, has spent much of her career exorcising the troubling demons of her difficult childhood and teenage life. Likewise, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) had to come to terms with the fact that he was named after his beloved dead brother, and told by his parents that he was his reincarnation. Edvard Munch, painter of The Scream (1893), was brought up by a militantly Christian father who told the children they would be damned for eternity, after his mother died when he was six years old. Of his famously disturbing picture he said: “Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.”

Grayson Perry, the 51-year-old Turner Prize winner who rose to fame with vases decorated with images of sex and child abuse, has spoken about how his art became therapy for an unhappy childhood. His father left when he was seven and his stepfather, a some-time wrestler, was a hot-tempered bully. “Art for me can be therapeutic. I used to call the creative part of my brain the inner shed. When I was feeling a little bit down I would climb up the stairs to my inner shed. My experience is that we have as children this unconscious mechanism that is so clever it will turn trauma into something good – that impetus to normalise what is a horrible situation for the psyche into something that then is a legacy…” he says. “All my pathways were trodden at that point, they did not become truly useful until I was an artist.”

ECCENTRIC CIRCLES

Whether it’s a difficult experience that drives the artist or simply a mind that translates experiences in extraordinary ways, another thing that seems to bind many creatives is the inclination to outwardly express themselves however they feel fit. When Perry, for example, was made a member of the exclusive and prestigious Royal Academy of Arts this March, he came as his alter-ego Claire – wearing full make-up, bouffant wig and a multi-coloured dress. More than 80 years earlier in 1936, Dali arrived at the London International Surrealist Exhibition wearing a deep-sea diving suit, carrying a billiard cue in one hand and holding onto a pair of Russian wolfhounds with the other. He later said that his outfit was his way of showing that he was plunging into the depths of the human mind.

From the eccentricities of Dalí, Grayson and Emin to the infamous mental turmoil of artists such as Van Gogh – who in 1888 famously cut off his ear lobe before shooting himself – and Italian painter Caravaggio (1571–1610) whose dark rages led him to kill a man, it could be argued that artists have a unique psychology. And while it may sound like a sweeping generalisation, there is growing scientific proof that artists’ minds do indeed work differently to the rest of the mainstream. “Artists have a different way of perceiving the world,” says Professor Claridge. “They think in new ways, make unusual connections and live in high states of emotion. You can’t say all artists are mad, but there is a relationship between creativity and traits associated with psychiatric disorders.”

Take the brilliant Leonardo da Vinci, for example, or the exceptional Michelangelo. Both were considered eccentric in their day – the former for wearing luridly coloured short tunics and the latter for screaming at statues and living like a pauper despite his great wealth. But, interestingly, today both are believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder – a condition that was not diagnosed in Renaissance Italy.

At Oxford University, Professor Ioan James argues that the late Andy Warhol (who was both extremely creative and famously controversial) had Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. “Perseverance, perfectionism, disregard for social conventions and unconcern about the opinions of others could be seen as the prerequisite for creativity but these are also behaviours associated with Asperger’s,” he says. The grid pattern of art Warhol pioneered, as well as his extreme shyness and repetitious behaviour, may be clues to a mild form of autism, according to Professor James. “The absolute flatness of his voice and his peculiar locutions are also indications.”

A mind of their own