Suicide and its Reflection in the Plastic Arts

Abstract

Introduction: Suicide is a unique human act. It is defined as any self-inflicted action carried out by an individual regardless of the awareness of its result. It is the main cause of mortality, and almost the only one, in patients with mental illnesses.

Objective: Show the relationship between some works of the plastic arts that address suicidal behavior, and the history that surrounds the authors and their work.
Methods: An analysis of works of the plastic arts related to suicide, as well as the stories that accompany the works and their authors, for some of whom, suicide was their own end, was carried out.

Development: A curious relationship between creativity, attempts and completed suicide is described, estimating that the suicide rates of artists triple those that occur in the rest of the “supposedly healthy” population, with a greater frequency of depressive and manic episodes. Among artists, poets and writers are those with the highest incidence of suicide, only surpassed by musicians. Some well-known personalities, such as Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Van Gogh, Tchaikovsky, Marilyn Monroe, Jacques Vaché, and historical figures such as Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler make up the long list of deaths attributed to suicide.

Conclusions: Suicide is a behavior that has been depicted with unusual frequency by artists since past times, many of whom have also devoted part of their work to highlighting its methods and consequences.