Abstract

The paper aesthetically examines the connection, that is inseparability between art and ‘madness’. Madness as a psychological and psychiatric term does not exist, and it is a social construct and a qualification that is often used to by the social majority to disqualify social minority or individuals who deviate from values majority cares about. In this paper, I interpret how art, in this sense given, is madness because to have an original artistic creation, it is necessary to have eccentricity that often leads to condemnation. Madness in art is considered in two primary ways. The first way is on the level of objectivistic aesthetics where madness is a theme or the object of artwork, and the second way is on the level of subjectivistic aesthetics where madness is the subject, i.e. the author of artwork. I will refer to many masterpieces from renown world artists who suffered from certain mental illnesses, from which they gained ever greater inspiration. I conclude that art in both objective and subjective terms is a necessary eccentricity inseparable from madness, which is thereby a presupposition for artwork.