“Art & Mind” is a journey into art, madness and the unconscious — an exploration of visionary artists and the creative impulse, from the Flemish Masters of the Renaissance to the avant-garde movement of Surrealism and the unsung geniuses of Art Brut and Outsider Art.
“Art & Mind” features many artists including Hieronymus Bosch, Francisco Goya, Vincent Van Gogh, William Blake, Edvard Munch, Salvador Dali, Otto Dix, Pieter Bruegel, Henry Fuseli, Unica Zürn, Adolf Wölfli, André Breton, Carl Jung, Richard Dadd, Max Ernst, Henry Darger, Eugène Delacroix, George Widener, William Hogarth, Albrecht Dürer, Augustin Lesage, Théodore Géricault, Odilon Redon, Matthias Grünewald, Lucas Cranach, Leonora Carrington, William Kurelek, Antonin Artaud, Paul Rumsey and Laurie Lipton.
“Art & Mind” presents art historians, artists, museum curators, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists. The film also had access to art from prestigious museums and art collections including Tate Britain, Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Prinzhorn Collection, La Halle Saint Pierre, ABCD Collection, Outsider Art Fair, Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Lombroso Museum, Freud Museum, MAHHSA, Lille Métropole Museum of Contemporary and Outsider Art, Maisons Victor Hugo, Adamson Collection, Museum Dr Guislain and Museum Im Lagerhaus.
“Art & Mind” explores the relationship between art and madness. The theme of madness inspired some of the most incredible painters in history, but mad people often experienced an unstoppable urge to create art too. The film also investigates how visionary and avant-garde artists sought to explore their unconscious mind as an inspiration for their art.
The theme of madness inspired artists since the Middle-Ages to create truly magnificent paintings: the “Stone of Madness” by Hieronymus Bosch and the Flemish Masters, the apocalyptic visions of Pieter Bruegel, compelling depictions of asylums by Goya and countless portraits of madness including Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” and Vincent Van Gogh’s “Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear”.