In the first study to examine the potential link between mental illness and artistic styles, Arnold M. Ludwig, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, demonstrated a relationship between artistic style and predisposition to mental disturbance.

The findings were reported in the article, "Method and Madness in the Arts and Sciences," in the June issue of Creativity Research Journal.

In a 1992 study of 1,000 people representing 18 professions, whose biographies appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Ludwig demonstrated that a powerful relationship exists between artists and rates of mental illness. The sciences, in contrast, with their reliance on objectivity, were more likely to attract emotionally stable people.

Ludwig determined that a dominant pattern exists: the more a profession relies on mathematical, natural, formal and objective modes of expression, the lower the prevalence of mental illness in its members. The more a profession relies on subjective and introspective modes, the higher the rates of mental disturbance.

"I wanted to examine broad professional categories in more depth to find a unifying principle to account for different rates of mental illness among professions," Ludwig said. "The principle seemed to hold true at every level of comparison, leading me to use a fractal metaphor to explain these findings."

Fractal geometry, a form of mathematical modeling, was invented in 1988 by Benoit Mandelbrot. It applies to complex geometric shapes that have the properties of self-similarity, such as snowflakes or rocks. The parts of these objects resemble the whole, and continue indefinitely, so that each part, when magnified, basically looks like the object as a whole.

The follow-up study in 1998 examined different professional categories closely to detrmine whether smaller components, such as subprofessions, would exhibit the same relationships as noted in the initial study in 1992.

Ludwig completed the 1998 pilot study on 137 20th century artists, ranging from the formality of Henri Matisse to the photorealism of Ansel Adams and the abstract expressionism of Willem DeKooning.

Two professional artists rated the subjects’ works on a scale from one to 10 for formality, symbolism and emotion. For example, expressive artists like DeKooning and Ernst Kirschner ranked low on formality, but high on emotion. In this way, each artist’s style was represented by proportions of all three elements.

Ludwig combined ratings into a single score and compared rates of psychopathology in each category. The results were dramatic. Artists that ranked highest in formality were associated with the lowest rates of mental illness; those who ranked lowest in formality, but highest in emotion, tended to be associated with the highest rates of mental illness.

Using the same 137 artists, Ludwig categorized them by their association with art movements. Abstract art, for example, was classified as formal because of its compositional emphasis, pop art was symbolic, and abstract expressionism was predominantly emotive.

On almost all measures of psychopathology, visual artists with emotive styles had a 75 percent lifetime prevalence of alcoholism, drug use and depression; symbolic artists had a 52 percent lifetime rate, and those with the most formal styles had a 22 percent rate.

Did the same patterns hold true within the sciences? Scientists were separated into hard sciences (mathematicians, physicists and biologists, for example) versus softer sciences (such as sociologists, educators and philosophers) to determine whether a higher rate of susceptibility to mental illness existed. Social scientists were almost twice as likely as hard scientists to have a mental disorder, the study found.

Another sample placed writers into three categories: nonfiction, fiction and poetry. As predicted, a trend existed. Poets were more likely than nonfiction writers to exhibit mental illness. Poets’ susceptibility to depression was statistically significant, suggesting a link between writing style and predisposition to the disease.

"This study suggests a complex interaction exists between creative individuals and their professions," Ludwig said. "Those who are more emotionally unstable seem more inclined to gravitate toward professions that encourage emotive forms of expression. Those who are more stable are inclined toward more objective professional fields."

The relationship is best described by a fractal metaphor and seems to happen at each professional level, he said. It even takes place within the different forms of artistic endeavors.