6 artists who lived extremely traumatic lives

It is said that emotions and life experiences define a person. But when the person is an artist, it defines their art, their creativity, and their works. Be it the sadness and traumas in the poetries, to the melting faces and paranoid themes of paintings, trauma manifests in different ways. And in the world of art and paintings, there are certain artists who led extremely traumatic lives, and sometimes, it showed in their artworks. From cats in 3D like states, to endless screams of horror, there were certain artworks that took people into the artist’s life.
Here we mention 6 artists who lived traumatic lives.

The founder of ‘impressionism’, an art style that became the epitome of nature’s beauty, scenic spaces, and more, Claude Monet was a man who seldom let his trauma and sadness be a part of his art.
It is said that Monet faced extreme poverty in his early years, struggling to sell his paintings while trying to provide for his family, and then the constant financial instability pushed him into deep despair, even to an attempted suicide. And then later in life Monet developed cataracts, which left him devoid of identifying colours, keeping him from his craft.
But Monet’s work was all happy, lively, and jolly, with nature and bustling lillies, and beautiful Japanese arched bridges in the garden.

No one is alien to the struggles of van Gogh with mental illness, depression, and a life of trauma. From failure to loneliness, van Gogh endured it all, and his self-destructive behaviour and inner turmoil is often reflected and interpreted in his artworks.
It is believed that van Gogh’s relationship with his family was strained, and despite painting over 2,000 artworks, he only sold a few in his lifetime with the help of his brother Theo. From the incident where he cut off his own ear after an argument, to the belief that he ate yellow paint, van Gogh’s life was a series of traumas.

A life filled with both physical and mental trauma and pain was that of Frida’s. And her art depicted it all very well. From the ‘Wounded Deer’ that could no longer move, to the ‘Two Fridas’ trying to cut the cord with each other, to ‘Deigo on my Mind’ showing her tumultuous relationship with Deigo Rivera, her art depicted her internal struggles in more than one way.
As a child, Frida contracted polio, leaving one of her legs permanently weakened. And then at 18, she survived a horrific bus accident that injured her spine and pelvis, and there was her marriage to Diego Rivera that was filled with infidelity and heartbreak.

In the life of the artist who created ‘The Scream’ there was also a lot of screaming and despair. And it was popularly said that Munch’s art was a direct image of the trauma and anxiety he experienced throughout his life. Munch had to endure the death of his mother and sister, both with tuberculosis, and his father too was a distant man who died early on in life. And thus his life ahead was spent with a sense of isolation and alienation.
As he grew older, he is also said to have battled severe anxiety, depression, and alcoholism.

One of the most famous Spanish artists’, Francisco Goya created some real pieces of art. And although his early paintings were bright, joyful, and revolutionary, there came a phase of ‘Black Paintings’ in his lifetime, that were made a part of the walls of his home.

Goya created the ‘Black Paintings’, a series of deeply disturbing artworks painted directly onto the walls of his home. These haunting images, filled with despair and madness, featured witchy figures, ‘Saturn devouring his Son’, ‘Old men eating Soup’, and more, and were evidence of his declining mental state and deep sense of hopelessness.

The man famous in books of psychology, Louis Wain, was famous for his ‘whimsical’ cat illustrations that were at the time defined as ‘crazy beyond means’. He was diagnosed with Schizophrenia at 57, and his drawings of cats turned into nightmares for the young children overtime.

With time, as his inner turmoil grew, Wain’s cats were no longer cheerful, but had a sense of eeriness to them. They were drawn in purples, oranges, some with a certain ‘shock sign’, and the likes.